In Bruges. 423 (a) The School of Bruges. Huibrecht van Eyck (ab. 1366 — 1426) is generally styled the father of modern painting in the North of Europe, and there occupies a position somewhat similar to that of Masaccio and Mantegna in Italy. His chief claim to distinction rests not, as was long believed, on the invention of oil colours, but on the removal of the obstacles to their employment for important works, and on the wonderful power, transparency, depth and harmony of colouring he acquired by their use. Until the time of Huibrecht van Eyck, oil colours were practically useless for any but minor purposes, as, in order to quicken the drying of the colours, a varnish of oil and resin was employed, which fatally injured their brightness. Huibrecht, by using a colourless varnish, obviated this difficulty, and, by judicious under- painting, attained an admirable balance in his tones and shadows. His manner combined the most profound and genuine realism with something of the idealism and symbolism of the Middle Ages, and he painted his sacred figures in a portrait-like manner, giving to all his works a dramatic and picturesque cheerfulness certainly never sur- passed in freshness and simplicity by any Italian master. He did not, however, escape the stiffness of design and hardness of outline generally characteristic of the Teutonic work of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance. The master-piece of the Van Eycks is the polyptych, begun by Huibrecht, as an altar-piece for the chapel of one Judocus Vydt in the cathedral of S. Bavon at Ghent. It is formed of two rows of panels — seven at the top and five at the bottom. The top row — consisting of God the Father, with the Virgin, a choir of Angels and
