al of
painting.

[Chiaroscuro]

Yet there were some of the seventeenth-century masters, and of the best,
such as De Hooghe and Ver Meer of Delft, who showed themselves very much
alive to decorative effect, which their power of chiaroscuro--the power
of painting things in their proper atmosphere, as lost in transparent
depths of shadow, or found in luminous mystery--only seemed to enhance.

As a wonderful instance of ornamental and dignified design carried into
every detail with most careful draughtsmanship, and yet beautiful in
chiaroscuro and grave colour, there is no finer example than J. Van
Eyck's portrait-picture of "Jan Arnolfini and his Wife" in our National
Gallery. Such pictures as these would tell as rich and precious gems
upon the wall, and would form the centres to which the surrounding
colour patterns and decoration would lead up, as in the picture the
little mirror reflecting the figures shines upon the wall, a picture
within a picture.

[Illustration (f134): J. van Eyck: "Portrait of Jan Arnolfini and His
Wife." (National Gallery.)]

It is instructive from any point of view to study the quantities and
relations of colour, and their tones and values, in such works.

[Ver Meer of Delft]

Take Ver Meer's "Lady at a Spinet" in our National Gallery.

[Illustration (f135): Ver Meer of Delft: "Lady at a Spinet." (National
Gallery.)]

We have a plain white wall, exquisite in tone, upon which the crisp gold
of the small picture inclosing a brownish landscape with a blue and
white sky, and the broad black frame of the picture of Cupid tell
strongly, yet fall into plane behind the figure in white satin--quite a
different quality of white, and warmer and brighter than the wall. The
bodice is a steely blue silk, which is repeated in the velvet seat of
the chair; while the blue and white landscape upon the open lid of the
spinet repeats the blue and white landscape on the wall, and the blue
and white motive is subtly re-echoed in a subdued key in the little
tiles lining the base of the wall. The floor is a chequer of black and
white (mottled) marble, which gives a fine relief to the dress and
repeats the emphatic black of the picture frame; the stand of the spinet
is also black striated marble. Quiet daylight falls through the greenish
white of the leaded panes. The pink-brown woodwork of the sp