gy was
given to these portions; and we can hardly imagine any discipline more
calculated to insure a grand and thoughtful school of art than the
necessity of discriminated character and varied expression imposed by
this peculiarly separate and prominent treatment of the features. The
exquisite drawing of the hand also, at least in outline, remained for
this reason even to late periods one of the crowning excellences of the
religious schools. It might be worthy the consideration of our present
painters whether some disadvantage may not result from the exactly
opposite treatment now frequently adopted, the finishing of the head
before the addition of its accessories. A flimsy and indolent background
is almost a necessary consequence, and probably also a false
flesh-color, irrecoverable by any after-opposition.

115. The reader is in possession of most of the conclusions relating to
the practice of oil-painting up to about the year 1406.

* * *

"Its inconveniences were such that tempera was not unreasonably
preferred to it for works that required careful design, precision, and
completeness. Hence the Van Eycks seem to have made it their first
object to overcome the stigma that attached to oil-painting, as a
process fit only for ordinary purposes and mechanical decorations. With
an ambition partly explained by the previous coarse applications of the
method, they sought to raise wonder by surpassing the finish of tempera
with the very material that had long been considered intractable. Mere
finish was, however, the least of the excellences of these reformers.
The step was short which sufficed to remove the self-imposed
difficulties of the art; but that effort would probably not have been so
successful as it was, in overcoming long-established prejudices, had it
not been accompanied by some of the best qualities which oil-painting,
as a means of imitating nature, can command."--_Ib._ p. 88.

* * *

116. It has been a question to which of the two brothers, Hubert or
John, the honor of the invention is to be attributed. Van Mander gives
the date of the birth of Hubert 1366; and his interesting epitaph in the
cathedral of St. Bavon, at Ghent, determines that of his death:--

* * *

"Take warning from me, ye who walk over me. I was as you are, but am now
buried dead beneath you. Thus it appears that neither art nor medicine
availed me. Art, honor, wisdom, power, af