s
required to raise the art to life, but a great personality as well; and
to the influence of Rubens may be attributed much if not all of the
extraordinary fertility of the Flemish and Dutch Schools of the
seventeenth century. Making every allowance for the difference in the
times in which the Van Eycks and Rubens were working, there is no doubt
that the former lived in too rarefied an atmosphere ever to influence
their fellows, and with the exception of Hans Memling they left no

[Illustration: PLATE XXIV.--RUBENS

PORTRAIT OF HELENE FOURMENT, THE ARTIST'S SECOND WIFE, AND TWO CHILDREN

_Louvre, Paris_]

one worthy to carry on their tradition. Rubens showed his contemporaries
that art was a mistress who could be served in many ways that were yet
unthought of, and that she did not by any means disdain the tribute of
other than religious votaries. Beginning, as we have pointed out, with
sacred subjects, Rubens soon turned to the study of the classics, and
found in them not so much the classical severity that Mantegna had
sought for as the pagan spirit of fulness and freedom. "I am convinced
that to reach the highest perfection as a painter," he himself writes
"it is necessary, not only to be acquainted with the ancient statues,
but we must be inwardly imbued with the thorough comprehension of them.
An insight into the laws which pertain to them is necessary before they
can be turned to any real account in painting. This will prevent the
artist from transferring to the canvas that which in sculpture is
dependent on the material employed--marble, for instance. Many
inexperienced and indeed experienced painters do not distinguish the
material from the form which it expresses--the stone from the figure
which is carved in it; that which the artist forces from the dead
marble, from the universal laws of art which are independent of it.

"One leading rule may be laid down, that inasmuch as the best statues of
antiquity are of great value for the painter, the inferior ones are not
only worthless but mischievous: for while beginners fancy they can
perform wonders if they can borrow from these statues, and transfer
something hard, heavy, with sharp outlines and an exaggerated anatomy to
their canvas, this can only be done by outraging the truth of nature,
since instead of representing flesh with colours, they do but give
colour to marble.

"In studying even the best of the antique statues, the painter must
consider and avoi