John, the younger of the two brothers, was the one to whom renown more particularly attached (Fig. 251). He is reputed to have been the inventor of oil-painting; but all he did was to improve the methods employed. Nevertheless, tradition tells us that an Italian master, Antonello of Messina, made a journey to Flanders, with the object of finding out the secret of John Bruges (by which name Van Eyck is often called); and that he subsequently circulated it throughout the Italian schools. Be this as it may, John of Bruges, apart from any similarity in manner (for it was by the force of his colouring, as much as by his new theories of composition, that he succeeded in revolutionising the old school of painting), may be considered as the Giotto of the North; but we must add that the effects of his attempts were much more rapidly decisive. At one leap, so to speak, the somewhat cold painting of the Gothic school decked itself with a splendour which left but little for the future Venetian school to achieve beyond it; with one flight of genius, stiff and methodical conceptions became imbued with suppleness and vital action. Finally, we have the first notable sign of the true feeling of an art combining science and grace--a knowledge of anatomy is shown in the life-like flesh and under the brilliant draperies. There is, however, a considerable distance, which cannot fail to be remarked, separating the two reformers of art whose names we have just brought together. One, Giotto, desired to grasp the real in order to make it conduce to the triumph of the ideal; while Van Eyck only accepted the ideal because he had as yet been unable to apprehend the deepest secrets of the real. All the other masters are but as the fruit yielded by the school of the great Florentine, and by those which the descendants of the Flemish masters were destined to produce. At Ghent, we still have as an object of admiration, an altar-piece, a _chef-d’œuvre_ of Van Eyck; it is an immense composition, some portions of which have been removed; but at first it did not contain less than three hundred figures, representing the “Adoration of the Paschal Lamb by the Virgins of the Apocalypse.” [Illustration: Fig. 251.--“The Holy Virgin, St. George, and St. Donat.” By John van Eyck. (Museum at Antwerp.)] John van Eyck resided for some time at the court of Portugal, whither he had been sent by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, to delineate [Illustration: “ST. CATHERINE AND ST. AGNES.” A PICTURE ATTRIBUTED TO MARGARET VAN EYCK. On the left of the picture is seen St. Catherine of Alexandria holding in her hands the instruments of her punishment--the _wheel_, which is broken into fragments, and the _sword_ which decapitated her; below her is the head of the Emperor Maxmilian II., who ordered her martyrdom. On the right is St. Agnes, and a _lamb_, the emblem of her innocence and gentleness.