Читать книгу A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools - National Gallery (Great Britain) - Страница 70
NUMERICAL CATALOGUE, WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES
52. "PORTRAIT OF GEVARTIUS."
ОглавлениеVan Dyck (Flemish: 1599-1641). See 49.
One of the most celebrated pictures in the Gallery. The title by which it is commonly known is incorrect; the sitter being not Gaspar Gevarts or Gevartius, but Cornelius van der Geest, an amateur of the arts and a friend of Rubens and Van Dyck. It is the grave learning of a scholar, the gentle refinement of an artist – notice especially "the liquid, living lustre of the eye" – that Van Dyck here puts before us. In point of execution this picture ranks as one of the finest portraits in the world. "From it," says Mr. Watts, R.A., "the modern student will learn more than from any I am acquainted with. The eyes," he adds, "are miracles of drawing and painting. They are a little tired and overworked, and do not so much see anything as indicate the thoughtful brain behind. How wonderful the flexible mouth! with the light shining through the sparse moustache. How tremulously yet firmly painted. The ear: how set on … so throughout there is no part of this wonderful portrait that might not be examined and enlarged upon; but I would ask my fellow-students to do this for themselves. Not a touch is put in for what is understood by 'effect.' Dexterous in a superlative degree, there is not in the ordinary sense a dexterous dab doing duty for honourable serious work: nothing done to look well at one distance or another, but to be right at every distance" (Magazine of Art, June 1889). Sir Edward Poynter is equally enthusiastic. "This wonderful portrait," he says, "is perhaps the most perfect head ever painted by this consummate painter. Not only for the brilliancy and purity of its flesh tints, the masterly drawing, and the vitality of the expression, does it rank as one of the masterpieces of portraiture existing; but for the brushwork, of which every touch expresses with supreme dexterity all the varieties of form, substance, and texture, it is unsurpassed, perhaps unrivalled, in the history of painting" (National Gallery, i. 152). Another P.R.A., Benjamin West, copied the "Gevartius," and at this day there is no picture in the Gallery more often copied by students.82 Their preference is justified by that of the painter himself, who "used to consider it his masterpiece, and before he had gained his great reputation carried it about with him from court to court, and patron to patron, to show what he could do as a portrait painter."83
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Not all artists have learnt from this great work gladly. It was exhibited at the first exhibition of "Old Masters" at the British Institution in 1815, and B. R. Haydon tells the following story: "Lawrence was looking at the Gevartius when I was there, and as he turned round, to my wonder, his face was boiling with rage as he grated out between his teeth, 'I suppose they think we want teaching!'" (Autobiography, i. 292).
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Such is the tradition. By many modern critics the picture is, on internal evidence, taken away from Van Dyck and given to Rubens. Mr. Watts in the article cited above says: "Attributed to Van Dyck, but hardly, I think, suggesting his work, though it would be difficult to attribute it to any other painter, unless, perhaps, on some occasion Rubens might have been inspired with so fervent a love for art that he forgot his satisfaction in scattering his over-ripe dexterity."
