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always at the moment felt what was fitting or not fitting; how far he might go, and what was enougha tact, that in the art of life, as well as in every other art, distinguishes the real master. Hence at Syracuse, he could play the courtier, divert Dionysius [the tyrant], accept presents, perhaps even at times receive ill treatment from him, without lessening his own dignity, or becoming contemptible to the court or the prince. Hence, he could, as it suited him, appear in an elegant or a mean dress, without in the one looking like a fop, or in the other like a vulgar person. Hence it arose that he was never embarrassed about what he ought to say or do, in whatever circumstances he was placed, or whatever was the station, family, or character of the persons with whom he had to do. Hence it was that he was everywhere domestic everywhere in his proper element."

By an analogy not difficult to trace in his works, we perceive that Vandyck is all this in portrait painting, and stands forth just as decidedly from other practitioners of the Art, as Aristippus did from the founders of the more peremptory and abrupt schools of philosophy. The peculiar and genuine gentility of his portraits, seems just as much to result from inborn sentiment. The systematic part of his art, might perhaps be taught upon ascertainable principles; but there would still remain much of the tasteful delicacy with which he himself practised it as it were by prerogative, which could be comprised in no formulary, and reduced to no verbal rules. His urbane and gentlemanly airs; his plain truth and simplicity; his delicate daring, and his unsophisticated grace, all of which are so happily exemplified in our next article, would remain to himself.

PORTRAIT OF GEVARTIUS.

VANDYCK.

THIS fine portrait is painted as if the artist strongly felt, or well knew, that to exhibit the true character of the original-neither more nor less-was the proper object of the portrait painter's art; and that all else was mere apparatus, or meretricious display, and but the trappings and the suits of Art:-as if he confidently anticipated that the eye of sound taste would put aside other pretension and display, as a discerning and upright judge puts aside barristerial sophistry, and only look to see if a painted portrait had Nature's stamp and legend. Hence the simplicity and singlemindedness of his works-of which this head of Gevartius is one of the very finest— bore the strongest analogical resemblance in style to the eloquence of Ulysses, who, as the poet informs us, was perfectly unpretending, and

"Said no more than just the things he ought."

The reasons may have been, that having an unusual share of native delicacy of perception, and living before the age of conventional allurement in portrait-painting--he had nothing of which to divest himself, but his mind went straight to the destined mark, like an arrow from a strong arm and a wellstrung bow; and his accurate sense of vision, and steady nerves, made less effort and less practice necessary to him, than to less highly gifted artists.

We may nevertheless notice a distinction in his works. They are not all performed under the same

set of impulses, or attractions, nor through precisely the same medium of discernment. It is well known that he was the most distinguished of the disciples of Rubens; and that his earlier, partook more than his later, works, of the peculiarities of that great master. We are all, necessarily, creatures of imitation; and this, as respects the art of painting, is as entirely in the nature of things, as that children should at first speak the dialect, and adopt implicitly the creed, of their parents; which, in some instances, remains through life the same, and in others is modified, by subsequent cultivation, or innate energy, into original and individual peculiarity.

The head of Gevartius was painted while Vandyck stood in the radiance of Rubens, and looked at Nature through that radiance. Hence it appears as if the pencils and the minds of both artists had been engaged in its production; and as though the taste of Vandyck was superinduced on the style of his master. The late president West, who, with graceful humility, became a meek student in its presence, and copied it at the Gallery of the British Institution, was sometimes inclined to ascribe this picture to Rubens, and at others thought that Rubens had touched upon it: but upon this consideration we forbear to enter, since we perceive no certain means of egress. Doubtless Vandyck has well entitled himself to the honour which attaches to the productions of this transcendental portrait, and though certain touches about the chin and beard, might, and may, have proceeded from the hand of his master, there is that liquid and living lustre in the eye, and that precision of just harmony in the relation of the features to each other, that perfect freedom of hand, and that exactitude of

drawing throughout,-which only Nature, and Vandyck--the most intuitive and successful of her mimics -could have so successfully accomplished. In the whole range of the productions of the portrait painter's art, there is nothing finer; we had nearly added — nor any thing else of the kind, so fine. But between the best portraits of Titian, and the best of Vandyck's, who shall confer a preference?-Without presuming to do so, we may be permitted to say, that in the present instance, there is not less manifestation than in Titian, of a due portion of that "senatorial dignity" for which the great Venetian was so justly famed, and which in rendering the features, portrays also the mind, of the original; while there is more of exquisite taste combined with more of that principiating energy, of mental emanation, which, by seeming to transfuse soul into colours and canvas, makes poetical approximation toward the awful boundary between human and divine creations.

Gevartius, as he now hangs in the National Picture Gallery-ranging with modern works of the same general description; that is to say, portraits-one at each corner of a quadrangle of pictures-appears so superlative in style and execution, and so splendid in effect, that he makes Jackson turn pale, and nearly extinguishes Reynolds himself. Yet, of the Rev. Holwell Carr, Jackson's is really a very capital likeness, and so is Sir Joshua's of Mr. Windham. Still, however, there is a shining soul in Gevartius, which makes the others seem but like capita mortua,—they fade -they disappear from the sphere of Fine Art, like Al-debarân and Sirius, when the sun at the Easter season rises in Taurus.

As the physiognomy of this distinguished Flemish

scholar is intellectual and reflective, we conceive that the reader will naturally desire to know something of the man, and therefore submit the following biographical sketch.

John Gaspar Gevartius was born in the year 1593, and probably at Antwerp; for in the Jesuits' College of that ancient city, he received the earliest rudiments of education but he afterward studied at Louvain, Douay, and at Paris; in which latter city he resided for several years, dedicating himself chiefly to literary pursuits. Returning to Douay, the degree of doctor of laws was there conferred on him; but he finally established his residence at Antwerp, of which city he became the town clerk, with high reputation as a counsellor, juris-consult, historian, and poet; and died there in the year 1666.

Gevartius was the intimate friend of Rubens and Vandyck, and was often a supper-guest at the table of the former, who seldom paid out-of-door visits, though he not unfrequently received certain select friends of an evening at his own residence (after the labours and studies of the day were over,) of which number were Vandyck and Gevartius. The present admirable work (of which the drapery appears never to have been finished), is therefore a frank emanation and monument of friendship, as well as a triumph of the portrait painter's art. Rubens also painted a three-quarter portrait of this distinguished critic and scholar, which is now in the collection of the Baron Roose of Brussels; and he in his turn performed the melancholy duty of writing the epitaph of his friend Rubens.

"Here (in our National Gallery) is the likeness then of the friend of these two great artists painted

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