f the Netherlands, France, and Germany. How
important this influence was in the history of art we shall see later.
Many of the imitators of John learnt his accuracy and thoroughness
of workmanship, but none of them attained his deep insight into
character.

During the next fifty years many and beautiful were the pictures
produced throughout Flanders. All of them have a jewel-like brilliance
of colour, approaching in brightness the hues of the Richard II.
diptych. The landscape backgrounds are charming miniatures of towns
by the side of rivers with spanning bridges. The painting of textures
is exquisite. But the Flemish face, placid, plump, and fair-haired,
prevails throughout. In the pictures of Paradise, where the saints
and angels play with the Infant Christ, we still feel chained to the
earth, because the figures and faces are the unidealized images of
those one might have met in the streets of Bruges and Ghent. This is
not a criticism on the artists. The merit of their work is unchallenged;
and how could they paint physical beauty by them scarce ever seen?
Yet when all has been said in praise of the Flemish School, the brothers
Van Eyck, the founders of it, remain its greatest representatives,
and their work is still regarded with that high and almost universal
veneration which is the tribute of the greatest achievement.

CHAPTER V

THE RENAISSANCE

Who is this old gentleman in our next picture reading so quietly and
steadily? Does he not look absorbed in his book? Certainly the peacock,
the bird, and the cat do not worry him or each other, and there is
still another animal in the distance--a lion! Can you see him? He is
walking down the cloister pavement on the right, with his foot lifted
as though it were hurt. The story is that this particular lion limped
into the monastery in which this old man lived, and while all the other
monks fled in terror, this monk saw that the lion's fore-paw was hurt.
He raised it up, found what was the matter, and pulled out the thorn;
and ever afterwards the lion lived peacefully in the monastery with
him. Now, whenever you see a lion in a picture with an old monk, him
you will know to be St. Jerome. He was a learned Christian father who
lived some fifteen hundred years ago, yet his works are still read,
spoken, and heard every day throughout the world. He it was who made
the standard Latin version of the Scriptures. The services in Roman
Catholic churches in all countri