INTELLECTUAL RENAISSANCE
The remarkable revival of Belgian Arts and Letters which followed
shortly after the 1830 Revolution is one of the most striking examples
of the influence exercised by political events on intellectual
activity. For over a century the nation had been devoid of
self-expression, and during the fifteen years of Union with Holland
scarcely any notable works were produced. No doubt this time, being one
of economic recovery, was not favourable to the efflorescence of Art
and Letters, but the intense activity of the period of independence
appears nevertheless as an outburst of national pride and energy. It
seems as if all the strength, subdued during the periods of foreign
domination, had at last found an outlet, as if the Belgians had waited
all these years to assert again their intellectual power, which could
not or would not flourish for the benefit of foreigners.
Illustration: PALACE OF JUSTICE, BRUSSELS.
_Ph. B._
Architecture no longer represents, in modern times, what it represented
in the past, and it would be vain to search in modern Belgium, and, for
the matter of that, in any modern country, for the manifestation of an
original style expressing the spirit of the age. There are, however,
symptoms of vitality which must not be entirely disregarded. The
considerable number of public buildings erected and the more or less
successful efforts of their builders are by themselves a remarkable
testimony. It is characteristic of Belgian civilization and of its
irradicable traditional spirit of regionalism that the Hotels de Ville
built in imitation of the Flemish Renaissance are particularly
numerous, and even in some cases, such as the Maison communale of
Schaarbeek, particularly impressive. Some reconstitutions were also
attempted, as, for instance, the Antwerp Exchange and the Palace of
Margaret of Austria in Malines. The only strikingly original monument
is the Palace of Justice in Brussels, built by Poelaert (1870-79). It
is the result of an extraordinary medley of styles, from the Assyrian
onwards, and presents one of the most pathetic and gigantic efforts to
create a beautiful monument under modern conditions. This huge building
was intended by the Belgian people to be the apotheosis of Right. Not
only of the Justice of everyday courts, but also of international
Justice and of the right, so long violated on Belgian soil, of the
people to dispose of themselves.
[_HISTORICAL SCULPTURE_]
Wandering through the most important squares and gardens of Belgian
towns, the stranger will be astonished at the number of monuments
raised to the great Belgians of the past and to the heroes of Belgian
history. In Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, and even the small
provincial towns, he will find statues dedicated not only to the modern
kings and statesmen, but to the leaders of the various revolts against
foreign oppression, to the great artists and communal tribunes. Almost
every person mentioned in this book possesses his effigy, and the town
of Tongres has gone as far as immortalizing the features of the
Celtic chief Ambiorix in token of his resistance to the Roman Legions.
All these statues are not necessarily great works of art, nor is the
historical conception which their ensemble represents quite above
criticism, but, if one remembers that they were almost all raised
within fifty years of the declaration of Belgian independence, one may
at least understand the reason of their sudden appearance. In spite of
those who insist, in flattering terms, on Belgium's youth, she strongly
maintains her right to old traditions and wants to keep her ancient
heroes before her eyes. More or less consciously, the sculptors of
these statues realized that their fathers of the Renaissance and the
Middle Ages had as great a share in the making of the nation as present
kings and ministers. Their sudden appearance in the midst of Belgian
towns was not the result of official zeal, but the living symbol of the
gratitude of new to old Belgium. Jacques van Artevelde in Ghent,
Breydel and De Coninck in Bruges, Egmont and Horn in Brussels came into
their own at last.
Beside these historical statues, the traveller will find some
remarkable works of a more recent date which will recommend themselves
for their purely artistic value and which are generally noticeable for
their feeling for movement and muscular effort. In many ways, the
qualities of Rubens were revived in the modern school of Belgian
sculpture, and the Brabo fountain in Antwerp, the Death of Ompdrailles
and the Riders' Fight in Brussels suffice to show the influence
exercised by the seventeenth century school of painting on Jef.
Lambeaux, Van der Stappen and J. de Lalaing. The most original of
Belgian sculptors, Constantin Meunier (1831-1904), while possessing
similar plastic qualities, opened a new field by his idealization of
agricultural and industrial work. His miners, dockers, puddlers, and
field labourers are known to all students of art and will stand in the
future as the symbol of the economic renaissance of a people who could,
even under modern conditions, find a kind of grim attachment to their
labour.
Illustration: "THE PUDDLER." BY CONSTANTIN MEUNIER (1831-1904).
Cold academic compositions, painted under the influence of the chief of
the Imperial French school of painting, Louis David, were the only
productions of Belgian Art at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
In no domain did the fashion change more abruptly, on the morrow of the
Revolution, than in Belgian historical paintings. As early as 1833, G.
Wappers of Antwerp exhibited a large canvas recording an episode of the
recent Revolution. His example was followed by many artists at the
time, and Belgian history became the subject of a great number of
paintings, whose rather theatrical and pompous style does not entirely
succeed in hiding their sincere and serious qualities. The French style
of David was soon abandoned. Movement and colour, so inherent in the
Belgian temperament, came again to the fore, and, though the influence
of Rubens was overmastering, it was at least a national influence, and
soon led, under the inspiration of Henri Leys (1815-69), to the
production of historical works of great interest. The latter's frescoes
of the Hotel de Ville in Antwerp, illustrating the old franchises and
privileges of the town, may still be considered as a striking
expression of municipal freedom.
[_MODERN PAINTERS_]
At the same time, a great number of painters, reacting against the
rather artificial style of historical paintings, went back to genre
pictures, in which Teniers and his followers had excelled in the past.
Henri de Braekeleer (1814-88) translated the simple, intimate poetry of
modest interiors, while Joseph Stevens (1819-92) devoted his genius to
scenes of dog life. Later, when social questions came to the fore and
when the attention of the public was centred on the sufferings of the
poor and destitute, De Groux, Leon Frederic and, even more, Eugene
Laermans (_b._ 1864) conveyed in their works a burning sympathy for the
wretches and vagabonds straying through the towns and the Flemish
country-side. The latter's work is strongly influenced by Breughel.
Through an extraordinary paradox, Belgian Art, which only represented
scenes of merriment during the darkest days of the Spanish occupation,
gave far more importance to scenes of misery during the modern time of
great public prosperity, so revolting did it seem that such prosperity
should not be shared by all.
Another artist in whose works Breughel's inspiration is apparent is
Jacob Smits (_b._ 1856). He is almost the only one who may be
considered as a representative of religious painting in Belgium. Like
Breughel, he succeeded in bringing the Christian story close to the
people's hearts amidst Flemish contemporary surroundings.
A school of art in which colour and light play such a predominant part
is bound to produce valuable landscapes. In this new form, the love of
country expressed itself far more sincerely than in the earlier
historical compositions. Under the influence of Henri Boulanger,
Belgium produced, in later years, a number of first-rate landscape
painters such as Verwee, Courtens, Gilsoul, Baertsoen and Emile Claus.
Flemish landscapes exert a far greater attraction than the Walloon
hills, and, generally speaking, the Flemish element dominates in the
modern school as it did in the old. For the golden light lies on the
damp fields of Flanders, and Flemish artists have not yet given up the
hope of capturing it.
[_NATIONAL LITERATURE_]
The artistic Renaissance of modern Belgium might have been expected.
The worship of colour and form had always been a strong characteristic
of the race, and even in the drab years of the Austrian regime Belgian
painters had never ceased to work. A far more startling development was
the appearance, towards the middle of the nineteenth century, of a
national Belgian school of literature. In the Middle Ages, Flemish and
French letters in Belgium had produced some remarkable works. Owing to
the scholastic character of these writings and to the predominant
influence of French culture, they could not, however, be considered as
a direct expression of the people's spirit. In many ways, the modern
school of Belgian Letters was a new departure: French and Flemish
influences were more evenly balanced, and, though they worked
separately, Flemish and French writers, coming into close contact with
the people's soul, expressed the same feelings and the same
aspirations. For, if we make due allowance for the part played by
purely Walloon writers, specially novelists and story-tellers, the main
feature of the Belgian school of literature in the nineteenth century
is the break up of the language barrier. Strange as it may seem, a
comparison between writers in French and Flemish reveals a series of
similarities so striking that, supposing an adequate translation were
possible, there would be no difficulty whatever in including them in
the same group. The main reason for this is, no doubt, that almost all
the leaders of the movement in French, starting with De Coster and
Lemonnier, up to the contemporary period of Verhaeren and Maeterlinck,
are of Flemish extraction, and that their best works are imbued with
Flemish traditions and Flemish temperament. Broadly speaking, one might
say that most of the Belgian French writers are Flemings writing in
French and are far closer to their Northern brethren than to the French
whose language they use. Charles de Coster, who may be considered as
the father of this particular branch of the school, published in 1868
the _Legend of Ulenspiegel_, which is nothing but a prose epic in which
the legendary character of Owliglass is identified with one of the
heroes of the sixteenth century revolution against Spain. Camille
Lemonnier (1844-1913), in his best novels, deals with the manners and
customs of the Flemish peasantry. The very soul of Flanders shines
through the whole work of Belgium's great national poet, Emile
Verhaeren, from his early _Les Flamandes_ (1883) to the six volumes of
_Toute la Flandre_ (1904-12), and in all his earlier writings
(1889-98), Maurice Maeterlinck remains under the influence of Flemish
mysticism and miracle plays. This may seem a one-sided conclusion, and
the names of many Belgian writers of great distinction may be quoted
against it, but if we were to examine the question more closely, this
conclusion would be rather verified than disproved. From a purely
historical point of view, the general trend of inspiration is certainly
towards the North rather than towards the South.
The main features which characterize the Belgian writers in French and
confer on them a truly national originality are, on one side, a
tendency to emphasize the intimate joys of life, and on the other, an
intense feeling for mysticism, sometimes quite dissociated from any
dogmatic faith. Just as Flemish Art is remarkable for the religious
work of the fifteenth century and the sensuous productions of the
seventeenth, so Belgian writing in the nineteenth oscillates between
the spirit of Jordaens and that of Memling. In spite of some modernist
tendencies and a great technical boldness, Belgian literature remains
deeply influenced by mediaevalism. It belongs to the twentieth century,
even when written in the nineteenth, or to the fifteenth. The classical
atmosphere of the French seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is
totally absent. Those who care for the delicately poised balance of
classical taste, for wit and brilliance of dialogue, will be
disconcerted by childishness or fierce passion. It is an abrupt
literature, but spontaneous and sincere, which has not been spoilt by
formalism and scepticism, but which has not acquired, from a purely
technical point of view, the perfection of the French. Having remained
inarticulate during the two centuries of classical education, it has
lost nothing and gained nothing through them.
[_THE FLEMISH MOVEMENT_]
It is significant that the movement started in Flanders before
influencing the French-speaking part of the country. The Flemish
novelist, Henri Conscience (1812-83) had devoted a series of books to
the history of his country long before De Coster wrote his
_Ulenspiegel_. The Flemish language was, at the time, struggling
against great difficulties. It had been entirely neglected, from the
literary point of view, during the eighteenth century, and suffered now
from the natural reaction which followed the 1830 Revolution. It had
reaped little benefit from the fifteen years of union with Holland, and
there was a general belief, among the Flemings themselves, that it
would never recover its ancient position. The Flemish literary
Renaissance was initiated by a small group of intellectuals, headed by
Jan Frans Willems (1793-1846), who exerted all their energy to revive
Flemish customs, collect folk songs and traditions, and obtain a
liberal interpretation of the Constitution which proclaimed liberty of
language. The Flemish Movement received a new impulse when the young
poet Albrecht Rodenbach (1856-80) spread its influence to all Flemish
intellectual circles. The Flemings began to realize that they possessed
in Guido Gezelle (1813-99) a religious poet whose work could bear
comparison with the best French writings in the country. They saw,
growing up around them, a new school of writers of great promise, and
they insisted on their language being recognized, not only in
principle, but in fact, as the second official language of the country.
In 1898 a law was passed removing some of the causes of grievances,
such as the inability of judges and officials to understand the
language of the people with whom they dealt. Progressively the Flemish
language came into its own in matters of education and administration,
and, before the war, the only large question still under discussion was
the creation of a Flemish University. The principle of such an
institution had been admitted, but the relationship between this new
University and the old French University of Ghent had not yet been
established.
[_COMMON TEMPERAMENT_]
It must be understood that the language question remained throughout a
local quarrel between two sets of Flemish intellectuals. It was not a
quarrel between Walloons and Flemings, and administrative separation
was scarcely ever mentioned. It was not even, before the war, a quarrel
between the Flemish people, who knew only Flemish, and the Flemish
bourgeoisie, who preferred to talk French. It was a dispute between a
few intellectual Flemings, who wished to restore the language to the
position it occupied before the Spanish and Austrian regimes silenced
it, and the Flemings who wanted to restrict it to the common people and
treat it as a patois. It was, to put it bluntly, a discussion between
those who ignored history and those who realized that the independence
of the Belgian provinces was bound to bring about a revival of Flemish
Letters, as it was causing a revival of French Letters. For two
centuries the country had remained silent; she was now able to speak
again and to use all the riches and the resources of her two languages.
Instead of threatening national unity, bilingualism was its necessary
condition. For real differences do not lie in modes of expression, but
in the feeling and the soul of the people, and it matters little if an
image or a thought is expressed in one language or another, as long as
they reflect a common temperament and common aspirations.