It is at least painted
in the same practical spirit as that of a man painting an illustration
for any other book. It is not a picture meant to help one to pray,
or meditate. It does not express any religious idea. It was intended
to be the veracious representation of an actual event, shown as, and
when, and how it happened, true to the facts so far as Hubert knew
them.
[Illustration: THE THREE MARIES
From the picture by Hubert van Eyck, in Sir Frederick Cook's Collection,
Richmond]
He has dressed the Maries in robes with wrought borders of Hebrew
characters, imitated from embroidered stuffs, such as at that time
were imported into Europe from the East. The dresses are not accurate
copies of eastern dresses; Hubert would scarcely have known what those
were like, but was doing his best to paint costumes that should look
oriental. Mary Magdalen wears a turban, and the keeper on the right
has a strange peaked cap with Hebrew letters on it. Hebrew scholars
have done their best to read the inscriptions on these clothes, but
we must infer that Hubert only copied the letters without knowing what
they meant, since it has not been possible to make any sense of them.
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