fear of him the keepers did
shake, and became as dead men.

Surely this would be thought a beautiful picture had it been painted
at any time, but when you compare it with the Richard II. diptych does
it not seem to you as though a long era divided the two? Yet one was
painted less than fifty years after the other. It is the attitude of
mind of the painter that makes the difference.

In the diptych, although the portrait of Richard himself was a likeness,
the setting was imaginary and symbolic. The artist wished to tell in
his picture how all the Kings who succeed one another upon the throne
of England alike depend upon the protection of Heaven, and how Richard
in his turn acknowledged that dependence, and pledged his loyalty to
the Blessed Virgin and her Holy Child. That picture was intended to
take the mind of the spectator away from the everyday world and suggest
grave thought, and such was likewise in the main the purpose of all
paintings in the Middle Ages. But we are now leaving the Middle Ages
behind and approaching a new world nearer to our own.

Hubert van Eyck, in attempting to depict the event at the Sepulchre
as it might actually have occurred outside the walls of the City of
Jerusalem, was doing something quite novel in his day. His picture
might almost be called a Bible illustration. It is at least painted
in the same practical spirit as that of a man painting an illustration
for any other book. It is not a picture meant to help one to pray,
or meditate. It does not express any religious idea. It was intended
to be the veracious representation of an actual event, shown as, and
when, and how it happened, true to the facts so far as Hubert knew
them.

[Illustration: THE THREE MARIES
From the picture by Hubert van Eyck, in Sir Frederick Cook's Collection,
Richmond]

He has dressed the Maries in robes with wrought borders of Hebrew
characters, imitated from embroidered stuffs, such as at that time
were imported into Europe from the East. The dresses are not accurate
copies of eastern dresses; Hubert would scarcely have known what those
were like, but was doing his best to paint costumes that should look
oriental. Mary Magdalen wears a turban, and the keeper on the right
has a strange peaked cap with Hebrew letters on it. Hebrew scholars
have done their best to read the inscriptions on these clothes, but
we must infer that Hubert only copied the letters without knowing what
they meant, since it has not be