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Painting in Flanders starts abruptly with the fifteenth century. What there was before that time more than miniatures and illuminations is not known. Time and the Iconoclasts have left no remains of consequence. Flemish art for us begins with Hubert van Eyck (?-1426) and his younger brother Jan van Eyck (?-1440). The elder brother is supposed to have been the better painter, because the most celebrated work of the brothers--the St. Bavon altar-piece, parts of which are in Ghent, Brussels, and Berlin--bears the inscription that Hubert began it and Jan finished it. Hubert was no doubt an excellent painter, but his pictures are few and there is much discussion whether he or Jan painted them. For historical purposes Flemish art was begun, and almost completed, by Jan van Eyck. He had all the attributes of the early men, and was one of the most perfect of Flemish painters. He painted real forms and real life, gave them a setting in true perspective and light, and put in background landscapes with a truthful if minute regard for the facts. His figures in action had some awkwardness, they were small of head, slim of body, and sometimes stumbled; but his modelling of faces, his rendering of textures in cloth, metal, stone, and the like, his delicate yet firm _facture_ were all rather remarkable for his time. None of this early Flemish art has the grandeur of Italian composition, but in realistic detail, in landscape, architecture, figure, and dress, in pathos, sincerity, and sentiment it is unsurpassed by any fifteenth-century art.

Furthermore, it will be remembered that the British and French Governments violently protested when the plans were made public that the Dutch Government intended to fortify the mouth of the Scheldt in 1906. But in 1912, when the Balkan crisis became acute, the British went one step further. When Col. Bridges, in a conversation with Gen. Jungbluth, the Chief of the Belgian General Staff, said that England was ready to strike, that 160,000 men were ready to be landed and that they would land them as soon as any European conflict should break out, Gen. Jungbluth protested that for such a step the permission of Belgium was necessary. The cool reply was that the English knew it, but thought that, as Belgium was not strong enough alone to protect herself, England would land troops anyway. Gen. Jungbluth answered that Belgium felt strong enough to protect herself, which is in keeping with her declaration to France, when she offered to protect Belgium by five army corps, as reported in the British "White Book." The position of England was therefore that, while in 1906 they had already concerted plans for a joint action, in 1912 England intended action in any case, should a European conflagration break out.

Various opinions have been held as to whether we have any trace of a religious belief. Theoretically speaking, they had some sort of a religion, though doubtless very vague and indistinct; for we know of no nation as far advanced as they were destitute of it.<37> It has been pointed out, that the bones of some animals, as the horse, were very rare, and their absence explained as the result of superstitious reasons. It has also been conjectured that some of the perforated bones and teeth of animals found in various deposits were amulets worn for religious purposes; and some have gone so far as to infer, that the ornamentations on some of these so-called amulets represent the sun, and that, consequently, sun-worship prevailed among the Cave-men. While these various conjectures are, of course, possible, it is equally certain they are all "mere guess-work."

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