The position occupied by Hubert and Jan van Eyck in the history of art is one of unparalleled importance. A deep gulf divides them from all their immediate precursors, who seem to belong altogether to a different epoch--nay, a different world. Just as their improvement in the technical methods of their craft opened up a vista of till then unthought of possibilities, so their conception of life and of pictorial form marks the beginning of a new era, the passing of the vague mediæval idealism into an art that is based upon the close study and loving appreciation of Nature. Perhaps too much stress has been laid upon the so-called "realism" of the brothers van Eyck, and more especially of Jan. Again and again critics have insisted upon Jan's uncompromising love of literal truth, upon his insistence on details that are in themselves at times repulsively ugly. This realism was tempered with deep sentiment and a sense {26} of style which kept such details well subordinated to the general scheme, and it is in this respect that Jan van Eyck stands immeasurably above Melchior Broederlam, who occupied the position of _varlet de chambre_ and Court painter to Philip the Bold, the grandfather of Jan's patron. Broederlam, indeed, as may be seen in his famous altar-piece at Dijon, seems to be a far more pronounced realist than Jan van Eyck, simply because he lacks that sense of style and harmony and subordination--in short, that concentration--which makes us forget the realistic detail in the beauty of the complete thing. The real precursors of the van Eycks were the sculptors who carved the tombs, monuments, and reliefs in the churches of Tournai. In these we first find the faithful adherence to the facts of Nature and the understanding of the subtleties of form which in painting appear first in the works of the brothers van Eyck, who may have also owed much of their knowledge to the flourishing school of Flemish miniature-painters, if, indeed, Hubert in his early days did not actually practise this art. Yet, even though the new era in painting is, as it were, heralded by the new tendencies in plastic art--just as in {27} Italy Giotto was preceded by the sculptor Niccolo Pisani--there is something wonderful, something almost difficult to realise, in the sudden appearance of complete and perfect works of art, like the paintings of the van Eycks, that with masterly sureness express the whole essence of the Gothic style, whilst at the same time they reveal a new understanding of the inexhaustible beauty of Nature, a keen perception of structural growth and of individual characteristics, and, above all, an almost modern understanding of the play of light upon figures and objects in and out of doors.