_Pictures and Painters_
In another volume of this series we have already said something
concerning the origin and history of mediæval Flemish art. Within the
limited space at our disposal anything more than a mere sketch would be
impossible, and it would be superfluous and wearisome to repeat in the
present handbook, which is in some sense the companion volume to _The
Story of Bruges_, what has been there set down on the subject in
question. We shall therefore content ourselves by adding here, by way of
complement, a few notes (culled for the most part from Mr Weale's
published writings) on the mediæval art corporations of the Low
Country--those famous guilds of Saint Luke, of Our Lady, of Saint John,
within whose ranks were formed all the great Flemish masters of the old
national school, and by recounting as briefly as may be what is known of
the five most noted Brabant painters of the Middle Age:--Roger van der
Weyden, Dierick Boudts, Hugo van der Goes, Quentin Metsys, and Bernard
van Orley. Men, all of them, whose names are intimately associated with
Brussels or with Louvain.
In the early days the art of painting, like all the other arts and
crafts, was cultivated only in the cloister, and to the end of the
eleven hundreds it was submitted almost entirely to the control of the
religious orders. Not that the monks were the only artists and the only
artisans: attached to all the great abbeys, and even to some of the
smaller monasteries, and to more than one collegiate church, were vast
bodies of lay craftsmen--so vast that their numbers were often reckoned
by hundreds, sometimes by thousands, as we have documentary evidence to
show: these men lived under the protection of the monks, had received
their instruction at their hands, worked for them and with them, on the
monastic domain, and also, but under strict regulations, for outsiders
as well. Presently a change came, brought about by the rise of the
cities: the monastery then ceased to be the only place where art could
be cultivated in peace, and a vast immigration of artists to these new
havens of refuge was the consequence. The new-comers, too feeble to
stand alone, and not at first sufficiently numerous to be able to form
distinct corporations, solved the difficulty by affiliating themselves
to existing trade companies, sculptors joining hands with masons, and
painters with glaziers and saddlers. A few abbeys here and there
continued for a while to maintain their art schools and their lay
art-workers, but their numbers gradually diminished, and by the close of
the twelve hundreds there were no lay craftsmen of any kind outside the
city walls. By this time the city artists were sufficiently numerous to
be able to combine in distinct corporations. The first institution of
this kind of which we have any record was the Guild of Saint Luke at
Ghent, which was founded by the art-workers of that city as early as
1337; four years later the painters of Tournai followed their example;
the guild of Saint Luke, at Louvain, was founded before 1350, that of
Bruges in 1351, of Antwerp in 1382, and by the opening of the fourteen
hundreds almost every city in the Netherlands possessed its painters'
guild.
In no town where a guild was established was any outside painter
suffered to ply his craft for money, and no man could become a member of
the local guild unless he were a burgher of the town by right of birth
or of purchase. If a youth aspired to become a painter, the first step
was to enroll his name as a companion or probationer in the register of
the guild of the town in which he intended to practise. He was then
required to serve an apprenticeship under some master painter approved
by the guild, who was responsible not only for his technical instruction
but also for his fidelity to his civil and his religious duties. During
this time he lived with his master, and was bound to serve and obey him,
and the latter in his turn was bound to thoroughly instruct him in all
that concerned his craft. Nor was this all, when he had received his
indentures he had to serve as a journeyman under some qualified
master-painter, but not necessarily a member of the guild which he
himself proposed to join. When the time of his probation had expired--it
seems to have varied from town to town--he presented himself before the
heads of the guild, and brought with him a picture which he himself had
painted. If it came up to the required standard of excellence, and if,
after examining him, they were satisfied of his technical knowledge and
skill, he solemnly declared that he would obey the rules of the guild,
promised before God that his work should be good, honest, genuine, the
best of which he was capable, paid the prescribed fees, and, without
more ado, was enrolled in the books of the guild as an effective member.
But though he was now called a free master, had the right to set up for
himself, to vote at the annual election of the chiefs of the guild, and
was himself eligible for office, he was still submitted to the control
of his association: the Dean and Juries could search his workshop when
they would, and without warning, at any hour of the day or night, and if
they discovered there any painting materials of inferior quality they
had the right not only to seize and confiscate them, but to inflict on
their owner some penalty commensurate with the offence; and if any
dispute arose between a painter and his patron, the matter was brought
before the Dean and Juries of the guild, and the city magistrates were
bound to enforce their decision.
[Illustration: TÊTE DE FEMME EN PLEURS, ATTRIBUTED TO ROGER VAN DER
WEYDEN, BRUSSELS GALLERY.]
The art associations of the Low Countries were most powerful during the
latter half of the fourteen hundreds, precisely the period when Flemish
art attained the zenith of its magnificence. They were united to one
another by ties of the closest friendship: members of one guild never
had any difficulty in obtaining admission to another, and some painters
seem to have belonged to several guilds at the same time. From the
middle of the fourteen hundreds onwards, delegates from all the
painters' guilds in the Netherlands were wont to meet together every
three years in some town or other, where they spent several days
discussing topics of common interest, comparing notes, and communicating
to one another any new professional discoveries that had been made:
hence the remarkable uniformity in the technique of all the Flemish
pictures of the period which have come down to us. Such were the
institutions which produced some of the greatest painters whom the world
has ever seen. They never considered themselves, and were never
considered, superior to other craftsmen, but in those days, be it borne
in mind, every craftsman was an artist.
ROGER VAN DER WEYDEN
Roger van der Weyden was born at Tournai in the year 1400; he was
apprenticed to the Tournai painter, Robert Campin, on the 5th of March
1426, and admitted a free master of the Guild of Saint Luke in that city
on the 1st of August 1432.
The above facts are established by local contemporary documents, which
are undoubtedly genuine, but though the archives of Tournai have been
searched through and through, with a view to finding a possible ancestor
for Roger van der Weyden, only this much has as yet been discovered
concerning his parentage--that his father's Christian name was _Henry_
(_sic_), and that he died before the year 1435. We learn, however, from
some entries in the town accounts of Louvain that one _Henrich van der
Wyden_ was living in that city in 1424, and that he was a sculptor by
trade. Was this man Roger's father?
It is not absolutely certain, but there is good reason to believe that
before he was a painter Roger himself handled the chisel. This is in
itself significant; and though it seems at first sight improbable that a
citizen of Louvain should have been the father of a son born at Tournai,
when we remember that citizen's calling, and that the sculptors of
Tournai were in those days famous throughout Europe, the difficulty
disappears. Henrich, we may be very sure, would have made frequent
visits to Tournai on account of his professional pursuits; nor is it in
the least unlikely that upon one of these occasions he should have been
accompanied by his wife, or that during the sojourn there she should
have given birth to a son.
Be these things as they may, we know that the great Brussels painter was
sometimes called Roger van der Weyden, and sometimes Rogier de la
Pasture, and this is in itself _prima facie_ evidence that his family
was of Flemish origin. The translation of Flemish names into French or
Latin was common enough in the Middle Age, the inverse exceedingly rare.
Roger was married before 1435 to Ysabel Goffart, a lady of Brussels, and
it was perhaps on her account that he left his native town: we know that
he and his wife were settled in Brussels in 1435. He seems to have
rapidly made a reputation, for the following year he was named by the
city fathers _Portraiteur de la Ville_. Soon he was busy illuminating
the sculptured tomb which Philippe l'Asseuré had erected in memory of
Duchess Jeanne in the Carmelite Church, and painting those four panel
pictures for the Justice Chamber of the Town Hall, which created so
great a sensation, says Albert Dürer, that the whole world came to see
them, and which, alas, have long since disappeared.
[Illustration: 'PIETA' ATTRIBUTED TO ROGER VAN DER WEYDEN, BRUSSELS
GALLERY.]
We know very little of Roger's life between 1436 and 1450, but it is
certain that during this time he worked not only for the town of
Brussels, but also for various convents and corporations, and for
private individuals as well. In 1443 he was commissioned by Willem
Edelheere and his wife, Adelaïde Cappuyns, to decorate their oratory in
the Church of Saint Peter at Louvain; and the triptych--a 'Descent from
the Cross,' with portraits of Edelheere and his wife and their patron
saints--which still adorns this chapel, is said to be Roger's work.
Indeed, according to M. van Even, the archivist of Louvain, we have here
the only painting in Belgium which is certainly Roger's work. Its
authenticity, however, is disputed, and it has been much spoiled by
restoration.
One at least of Van der Weyden's pictures of this period has come down
to us--the 'Descent from the Cross' which he painted in 1440 for the
Louvain Confraternity of the _Grand Serment_, and which is now at
Madrid. The 'Weeping Woman' (No. 56) of the Brussels Gallery is an
ancient copy, or perhaps a study by the master himself, of one of the
heads in this picture. The next thing we know of Roger van der Weyden is
that in 1450 he made a pilgrimage to Rome for the Jubilee of that year,
and we know, too, something of the incidents of this journey. He
sojourned, amongst other places, at Ferrara and at Florence, and
wherever he went he was welcomed and fêted not only by the members of
his own craft, but also by the Sovereigns of the cities he visited. At
Ferrara he must have worked for Lionel d'Este, for on his return we find
him receiving from that prince 20 golden ducats in part payment for
_certe depicture_ executed in his palace there; and at Florence he
painted a triptych for Cosmo Medici--the 'Madonna and Child, surrounded
by Saints,' now in the Städel Museum at Frankfort.
In each of these cities, then, he must have remained a considerable
time. He does not seem to have practised his art in Rome. Perhaps his
stay there was a short one, and that his time was fully occupied by
sightseeing and devotion. That he fully appreciated the art treasures of
the Eternal City there can be no doubt, and we know that he was
enraptured with the Lateran pictures of Gentile da Fabriano, whom he
pronounced to be the first painter in Italy.
On his return to Brussels, Roger van der Weyden set to work with renewed
vigour. We still possess three of the pictures which he painted after
his journey to Italy:--the 'Nativity' triptych, with the portrait of
Peter Bladelin, now in the Museum at Berlin; the 'Last Judgment,' which
Chancellor Rolin ordered for the Hôtel Dieu at Baune (the authenticity
of this picture is disputed); and the 'Adoration of the Magi,' in the
Pinakothek at Munich. The last two especially show how profoundly the
great Brussels painter was influenced by his pilgrimage to Rome: the
composition of the Baune picture is almost the same as that of Andrea
Orcagna's 'Last Judgment,' and the main outlines of the Munich picture
distinctly recall the 'Adoration' of Gentile da Fabriano.
Of the numerous paintings attributed to Roger van der Weyden, probably
not more than five or six are of incontestable authenticity. He
certainly painted the 'Descent from the Cross' at Madrid, the 'Nativity'
at Berlin, the Medici triptych at Frankfort, and the 'Adoration of the
Magi' at Munich. These pictures are universally acknowledged to be his
work. Of the rest, most are attributed to him merely on account of the
similarity of style to the style of the work which is known to be his,
and are without signature or other designation.
There is very little doubt, however, that several of these are genuine
Van der Weydens--the 'Seven Sacraments' at Antwerp, for example, and the
'Pièta' of the Brussels Gallery; but at the same time, when pictures are
unsigned and there is no documentary evidence as to their authorship, it
is well-nigh impossible to arrive at absolute certainty. Sometimes a
pupil is able to so exactly acquire his master's manner that the
greatest experts are thereby deceived. It was so in the case of the
famous Sforza picture, formerly in the Zambeccari Collection at Bologna,
and now in the Brussels Gallery (No. 31). This beautiful picture--a
'Calvary,' with portraits of Francesco Sforza, his wife Bianca Visconti
and their young son Galeazzo--was attributed by some experts to Memling,
and it was thus ascribed in the official catalogue of the Brussels
Gallery. There were others, no less competent, who were convinced that
it was Roger's work; it dated, no doubt, they said, from the time of his
sojourn in Italy. Mr. Weale, however, was quite sure that neither of
these artists had painted it, and, thanks to his recent research, we now
know the true story of the picture. The critics who said that it was in
Van der Weyden's style were quite right, but it was not painted by the
master himself, but by his pupil, Zanetto Bugatto, of Milan. The Duchess
of Milan, it seems, had seen some of Roger's pictures, and was so
charmed by them that she requested him to paint her portrait. He, for
some reason or other, being unable at the time to leave home, was
compelled to decline the commission, and the Duchess sent the young
Milanese painter, Zanetto Bugatto, to Brussels in order that he might
study with Roger, and thus acquire his style. This was in the year 1460.
Bugatto remained in Brussels three years, and on his return to his
native town he painted the picture in question.
There is a tradition, which does not seem to be well founded, that Roger
van der Weyden was at one time the pupil of John van Eyck. If this were
so, he was certainly not much influenced by his master's manner of
painting. John delighted in serene immobility, Roger in tragic action.
His tall, wan, emaciated figures always live and feel; and though he
could, when he would, depict tranquillity, and his portraits are as calm
and collected as any of those which were painted by John van Eyck,
unlike Van Eyck's, they are almost always ascetic-looking, and very
often sad. He seems to have been unable to appreciate the beauty of
health and gladness.
Guicciardini says that Memling was Roger's pupil, but there is no
documentary evidence to show that such was the case. We know next to
nothing of the first days of the great Bruges painter, but his earlier
pictures distinctly recall the pictures of Van der Weyden; and if he
were not his pupil, he must have certainly studied his work.
Roger van der Weyden died at Brussels on the 18th of June 1464. He left
several children. One of them, Peter, followed his father's calling;
another, Corneille, after having made his studies at the University of
Louvain, became a monk in the Carthusian Priory which the burghers of
Brussels had recently founded at Scheut, by Anderlecht.
[Illustration: 'THE MARTYRDOM OF SAINT ERASMUS' BY DIERICK BOUDTS, AT
SAINT PETER'S, LOUVAIN.]
DIERICK BOUDTS
Dierick Boudts was born a few years later than Van der Weyden; the exact
date of his birth is unknown, but it cannot have been much before 1420.
He was a native of Haarlem, where at this time there was a flourishing
school of painters noted for their beautiful landscape backgrounds, and
for the care with which they executed their drapery. His father, who was
also named Dierick, was one of them, and it was doubtless in his
workshop that young Dierick Boudts received his artistic education.
For some reason or other, about the year 1445, he migrated to Louvain,
where he soon found a wife in the person of Catherine van der Bruggen,
the daughter of a well-to-do burgher family, who presently gave him
three girls, who became nuns; two boys, Dierick and Albert, who followed
their father's calling, and a large house in the Rue des Récollets--site
now occupied by the Jesuit Church--which she inherited at the death of
her parents (December 17, 1460). Here Dierick and his family took up
their abode, and here it was that he painted his four most famous
pictures--'The Last Supper' and 'The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus' at
Saint Peter's, Louvain, and 'The Iniquitous Sentence of Otho' and 'Otho
repairing his Injustice' in the Brussels Gallery.
Dierick was commissioned to paint the first two in 1464 by the rich
confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament of Louvain, for Saint Peter's,
where the brethren of the confraternity had two altars; the pictures
were finished in 1468, and the quittance which the artist gave for the
money he received for them is still in existence; and note, he signs his
name not Dirk nor Thiery, as modern writers often style him, but Dierick
Boudts. The Saint Erasmus altar-piece is a triptych; the central panel
shows the martyrdom scene, the Gospel wing Saint Jerome and the Epistle
wing an abbot, perhaps Saint Bernard. All three panels are still at
Saint Peter's. The other altar-piece also had originally wings; on these
were painted the First Celebration of the Passover, Elijah fed by
Ravens, the Meeting of Abraham and Melchisedek, and the Israelites
gathering Manna: the first two are now in the Berlin Gallery, and the
others in the Pinakothek at Munich. The subject of the central panel is
the Last Supper, and it still adorns the church for which it was
painted.
The execution of these important works made Dierick's name famous.
Hardly were they completed when the city fathers bestowed on him the
honorary title of _Portraiteur de la Ville_, and commissioned him to
paint for the Town Hall a triptych representing the Last Judgment, and
four great panel paintings to be hung in the Justice Chamber, for the
whole of which they agreed to pay him 500 florins. The triptych was
finished in 1472; it has unhappily disappeared. Two years previously he
had set to work on the first of the four panels, and shortly afterwards
he received a visit from the city magistrates, who were so pleased with
what he had done that they made him a present of wine of the value of 96
_placken_. The next thing we know of Dierick Boudts is that he lost his
wife in 1472 or thereabout, and that shortly afterwards he married
Elizabeth van Voshem, who was the widow of a rich butcher, and, as we
have already seen, the sister-in-law of the glass painter Rombold
Kelderman. By this lady he had no offspring, his union with her was not
a long one. In the early spring of 1475 he seems to have been in
enfeebled health, for on the 18th of April he chose the place in which
he wished to be buried--beside his first wife, in the Church of the
Récollets, and on the same day he made his will, which is still
preserved. He left to Elisabeth Voshen all his real property, all his
outstanding debts, and all his completed pictures; to each of his three
daughters a trifling monthly allowance; and to his two sons a silver
cup--the only thing, he says, which he himself had inherited from _his_
father--the implements of his craft, and all his unfinished pictures,
and before the summer was out he had gone the way of all flesh. Only two
of the Town Hall paintings were completed. Dierick, indeed, had not had
time even to begin the others, and presently the question arose, how
much of the 500 florins was due to his executors? Whether there was any
dispute about the matter we do not know, but it would seem that such was
the case, for three years had elapsed before the account was settled,
and at last the city fathers had had recourse to expert advice. We learn
from the town accounts of 1478 that the sum of 376 florins 36 placken
was in that year paid to Dierick's sons, and that this amount was the
value of the pictures as estimated by 'the most notable painter in this
land--to wit, he who was born in the city of Ghent, and now resideth in
the _Rooden Clooster, in Zuenien_'--without doubt Hugo van der Goes, who
had donned the cowl at Rouge Cloître two years before; and we learn,
too, from the same source, that this man, during his sojourn in Louvain,
lodged at the sign of The Angel, and that the city magistrates offered
him a pot of Rhine wine.
The pictures in question were duly hung in the Justice Chamber, and they
remained there till 1827, when they were sold to the King of the
Netherlands for 10,000 florins. In 1861 they were repurchased by the
Belgian Government for 28,000 francs, and placed in the Brussels
Gallery, where they still remain (Nos. 3C and 3D).
These two pictures and the pictures above mentioned of Saint Peter's,
of Munich, of Berlin, are, of all the works attributed to Dierick
Boudts, the only ones whose authenticity is incontestable. Some of the
rest are most probably genuine, more, perhaps, than in the case of
pictures attributed to Van der Weyden, for Boudts had a peculiar style
of his own, which is more distinctive than Roger's.
Several of the pictures formerly attributed to Dierick Boudts are now
generally believed to be the work of his son Albert, notably the 'Last
Supper,' in the Brussels Gallery (No. 3F). As for Dierick Boudts the
younger, no picture painted by him has as yet been identified. His name
appears again and again in the town accounts of his native city in
connection with fines for brawling, he was born in 1448, and died before
1491, and this is all that we know of him.
HUGO VAN DER GOES
Hugo van der Goes was probably a native of Ghent, and if, as Van Mander
says, he was a pupil of John van Eyck, who died in 1441, he must have
been born somewhere about the year 1420. Be this as it may, his work
bears witness that he was more deeply impressed by the great Bruges
master than any other of the Flemish primitives. He was certainly at
Ghent in 1465, and henceforth this town was his home until 1476, when,
following the example of his brother, the only one of his kinsmen of
whom we have any knowledge, he became a monk of Rouge-Cloître, near
Brussels.
Why this sudden flight from the world? Grief, suggests Alphonse
Wauters,[40] at the loss of a wife. It is a mere conjecture; we do not
even know for certain that Hugo was ever married. Van Mander tells how,
when he was still a _vry gheselle_--that is, a bachelor--hence, notes
Wauters, it follows that he presently ceased to be such--he painted on a
wall, over a chimney-piece in her father's house at Ghent, the portrait
of the woman he loved, in the guise of Abigail coming forth to meet
David.
[40] _Hugues van der Goes sa vie, et ses [oe]uvres_, par Alphonse
Wauters, Archiviste de la ville de Bruxelles, etc. (Bruxelles, 1872.)
'N'y a-t-il pas là un doux souvenir d'un triomphe remporté par l'amour
et couronné par l'hymen? L'allégorie me semble évident.' Thus Wauters;
and he continues: 'Après avoir aimé avec ardeur et avoir obtenu la main
de sa maîtresse, il aura été frappé au c[oe]ur par la mort de sa
compagne et se sera réfugié dans la solitude pour y vivre de souvenirs
et de regrets.' The story as it stands is a pretty one, but one cannot
help remembering that David's Abigail was a rich and perhaps an elderly
widow, and that immediately after his marriage with her he took a second
wife. Moreover, the assumption that Hugo married the lady whose portrait
he painted is a wholly gratuitous one; Van Mander does not even as much
as hint that such was the case.
But if we have no certain information as to the motives which inspired
the great Ghent painter to don the cowl, we have an authentic and
detailed account of his life in the cloister, and of the terrible
misfortune which there embittered his last days. It was written by a
monk of Rouge-Cloître who knew Hugo well, and the manuscript was
discovered some fifty years ago by Alphonse Wauters himself. It is a
very curious document; and note, the writer makes no mention of Hugo
ever having been a married man. And if this had been so, from the nature
of his narrative he would have been almost certain to have said
something about it.
'In the year of Our Lord 1482 died Brother Hugo, a lay brother professed
in this monastery. He was so famous a painter that on this side the
mountains, in those days, his like was not to be found. He, and I who
write these things, were novices together. At the time of his clothing
and during his novitiate, Father Thomas, our prior, allowed him many
mundane consolations of a nature to incline him rather to the pomps of
this world than to the way of humility and penance; and this was by no
means pleasing to some, who said that novices should not be exalted,
but, on the contrary, put down. And because he was so excellent a
painter, great folk were wont to visit him, and even the most
illustrious Archduke Maximilian himself; for they ardently desired to
behold his pictures, and Father Thomas allowed him to receive them in
the Guest Chamber, and to feast with them there. Some five or six years
after his profession it so happened that Brother Hugo made a journey to
Cologne along with his brother, Brother Nicholas, an oblate here, and
Brother Peter, canon-regular of Trone, then residing in the Jéricho[41]
at Brussels, and several others. One night, on the way home, as I
learned at the time from Brother Nicholas, our Brother Hugo was seized
by a strange mental derangement, which caused him to cry out continually
that he was damned and condemned to eternal perdition; and he would fain
have laid violent hands on himself, and would certainly have done so had
he not been, but with difficulty, restrained by the aid of some who were
standing by. And thus the last stage of that journey was not a cheerful
one. 'Albeit, having obtained assistance, they presently reached
Brussels, and forthwith summoned Father Thomas, who, when he had seen
Brother Hugo and had heard all that had taken place, suspected that his
malady was similar to that which vexed King Saul, and, calling to mind
how that monarch had been soothed by David's harping, he caused not a
little music to be played in the presence of our brother, and strove
also to divert him by various spectacular performances; but in vain: he
kept on crying out that he was a son of perdition, and in this sorry
plight they brought him to Rouge Cloître. The kindness and attention
with which the choir brethren watched over him by night and by day,
anticipating all his wants and always striving to console him, these
things God will never forget. But false reports were spread abroad, and
by great folk too, that such was not the case.
[41] A monastery which formerly stood at the corner of the _Marché aux
Grains_ and the _Rue de Flandre_. The modern _Rue de Jéricho_ takes its
name from this monastery.
'As to the nature of the malady with which Brother Hugo was afflicted,
opinion was divided. Some said he was mad, others that he was possessed
(he had symptoms of each of these troubles), but throughout his illness
he never attempted to injure anyone but himself; and this is not the
wont of lunatics nor of men possessed by devils, and therefore what it
was, I believe, God only knows.
'Now the trouble of our monk painter (_pictoris conversi_) may be
regarded from two points of view. Let us say, in the first place, that
it was natural--a peculiar form of mania; for there are various kinds of
madness produced by various causes--improper food, strong drink, worry,
grief, fear, too great an application to books, and, in fine, a natural
predisposition to the same. So far as concerns emotions, I know for a
certain fact that Brother Hugo was greatly troubled as to how he should
finish his pictures, for he had so many orders that it was currently
said it would take him full nine years to execute them; and also he very
often studied a certain Flemish book. As to wine, I fear he indulged too
freely, doubtless on account of his friends. These things may gradually
have produced the malady with which he was afflicted. But, on the other
hand, it may have been brought about by the kind providence of God, who
desires that no man should perish, but that all should be brought to
repentance.
'Now Brother Hugo, on account of his art, had been greatly exalted in
our order, and, of a truth, he had become more famous than if he had
remained in the world, and, because he was a man like the rest of us,
perchance his heart was puffed up on account of the honours bestowed on
him, and the divers visits and the homage which he had received; and
that God, in order to save his soul, sent him this humiliating
infirmity, by which, of a truth, he was greatly abased. He himself,
understanding this when he had recovered his senses, humbled himself
exceedingly: of his own free will he left our table and meekly took his
meals with the other lay brethren.'
How long a time Hugo lived after he had recovered his reason his
biographer does not say, nor does he tell us any of the details of his
death or of his burial. After again enlarging on his skill in painting,
and after some further notes on the origin of madness and a long
theological disquisition, he simply says, '_Sepultus est in nostro
atrio, sub divo_.' He was buried in our cloister, in the open air.
Though Brother Hugo had been in his lifetime so famous a painter, he was
soon forgotten, and Van Mander, who wrote at the beginning of the
sixteen hundreds, could not even say when or where he died.
Of his grave, which was probably removed or broken when the Church of
Rouge-Cloître was rebuilt during the first half of the fifteen hundreds,
no relic remains but the text of a doubtful epitaph--
PICTOR HUGO VAN DER GOES
humatus hic quiescit
Dolet ars, cum similem
sibi modo nescit.
[Illustration: THE WINGS OF THE SAINT ANNE TRIPTYCH BY QUENTIN METSYS,
IN THE BRUSSELS GALLERY. _Shut._]
Of all the works of Hugo van der Goes there is only one whose
authenticity has as yet been established--a beautiful triptych which
he painted before 1476 for Thomas Portinari, the agent of the Medici
family in Bruges, and which Thomas afterwards presented to the Hospital
of Santa-Maria-Nuova, at Florence, where it still remains. Amongst the
pictures attributed to him with more or less probability, note in the
Municipal Gallery of Bruges _La Mort de la Sainte Vierge_, which, in the
opinion of Mr. Weale, is undoubtedly genuine; and in the Musée des
Beaux-Arts at Brussels the _Sainte Famille_ (No. 36), which may or may
not be his.
QUENTIN METSYS
Quentin Metsys, the son of old Josse Metsys, the metal worker of
Louvain, was born in that city in 1466. Like his elder brother, Josse
II., whose acquaintance we have already made, he was a man of many
parts. By trade, of course, he was a painter, but he by no means
confined himself to this craft; he made designs for wrought iron, and
carried them out too--witness the exquisite well cover by the great
porch of Antwerp Cathedral. He was also an accomplished musician, busied
himself with wood engraving, and dabbled, it is said, with some success
in Flemish letters.
It was doubtless as his father's assistant that he learned how to forge
iron; and there is a romantic story that before he became a painter he
was himself a metal worker by profession, and only relinquished this
calling for the sake of the woman he loved, whose father would never
consent to her marriage with a smith--a most improbable tale, for in the
days of Quentin's youth the craftsman who wielded the hammer was quite
as good a man as the craftsman who handled the brush.
Molanus asserts that Quentin Metsys was a pupil of Roger van der
Weyden--manifestly an error, for the latter died two years before
Quentin was born. It is perfectly possible, however, that he was the
pupil of Roger's son, Peter van der Weyden. However this may be, he must
have completed his apprenticeship before 1491, for at this time he was
already inscribed in the Guild of Saint Luke at Antwerp, and seems to
have already made for himself a certain reputation, for when we first
hear of him at Antwerp he was married and settled in a house of his own
in the Rue des Tanneurs. None of his works, however, of this period have
come down to us. The earliest of his authentic pictures which we
possess--the 'Burial of Christ,' now in the Antwerp Gallery--was not
painted till 1508, and the next--the 'Legend of Saint Anne,' now at
Brussels (No. 38)--dates from the following year; it is signed on the
third panel, 'Quinte Metsys schreef dit, 1509.' These two grand
triptyches are undoubtedly his _chefs-d'[oe]uvre_. The first was painted
for the Carpenters' Company of Antwerp, the second for the Confraternity
of Saint Anne at Louvain. They are remarkable, like all the earlier
works of this painter, for the delicacy of their execution, their
elaborate detail, their strange luminous tints. Though Quentin's palette
was a rich and varied one, his pictures have not the same mellow glow as
the pictures of several of his predecessors--of those of Dierick Boudts,
for example; and if his figures are less stiff than theirs, they are
also less spiritual. He stands, as it were, at the parting of the ways;
his creations, indeed, reflect the sublime beauty of Hubert van Eyck, of
Memling, of Roger van der Weyden, but at the same time, they seem to
foreshadow the voluptuous splendour of Rubens and of Jacques Jordaens.
[Illustration: THE WINGS OF THE SAINT ANNE TRIPTYCH BY QUENTIN METSYS,
IN THE BRUSSELS GALLERY. _Open._]
Quentin Metsys did not confine himself to sacred subjects. He portrayed
also intimate scenes of civil life--merchants in their counting-houses,
bankers, money-changers, and so forth. The most famous of these works
is in the Louvre; it was painted in 1519. In this kind of painting,
however, he had many imitators, and most of the _tableaux de genre_
attributed to him are not his. He also excelled in portraiture. One of
his best patrons for works of this kind was Peter [OE]gidius, whose
likeness he painted several times. One of these Peter presented to Sir
Thomas More, along with a likeness of their friend Erasmus, also
Quentin's work, and More acknowledged the gift in a set of Latin verses.
'If future ages,' he said 'retain the least taste for the fine arts, if
hateful Mars does not triumph over Minerva, what will not be the price
of these pictures in days to come.' They are possibly still in
existence. The portraits of Erasmus and [OE]gidius in the Longford
Gallery, near Salisbury, formerly attributed to Holbein, are now
generally ascribed to Quentin Metsys, and the portrait of Erasmus at
Hampton Court, and that of [OE]gidius at Antwerp, are now also commonly
believed to be his work. 'Si ce ne sont pas les originaux,' notes M.
A.-J. Wauters, 'ce sont deux excellentes copies du temps.'[42]
[42] _La Peinture Flamande_, par A.-J. Wauters. (Bruxelles.)
Quentin Metsys was twice married, and he was the father of thirteen
children, of whom at least two, John and Corneille, followed his
calling, and are represented in the Brussels Gallery. He seems to have
been socially inclined, and as he earned a considerable income, and his
second wife was rich, notwithstanding his large family he was able to
entertain his friends, amongst them [OE]gidius, Erasmus, More, Albert
Dürer, Holbein, Luke Leyden. He was still a comparatively young man when
he died at his own house at Antwerp in 1530. They laid him to rest in
the cathedral, hard by the great porch, and a hundred years after his
death the city erected a sumptuous monument to his memory, which has
long since disappeared. He was the last of the Flemish masters who to
the end remained faithful to the traditions of the old national school.
BERNARD VAN ORLEY
Everard, Lord of Orley, was a knight of Luxembourg, attached to the
Court of Duke John IV. of Brabant, or maybe in the service of his
brother, Count Philip of Saint-Pol. Like most of his race and class, his
pedigree was in all probability much longer than his purse; at all
events, he did not think it beneath him to marry middle-class money.
Mistress Barbara, the lady of his choice, was a member of an illustrious
burgher family famous in the annals of Brussels: she was the near
kinswoman, perhaps the daughter, of Alderman Jan Taye, whose
acquaintance we have already made, and she gave her hand to the Lord of
Orley somewhere about the year 1425. The issue of this marriage was a
son, whom his parents christened Jan, and who, when he had reached man's
estate, was enrolled in the _lignage_ called Sleuws--that is, of the
Lion--the same _lignage_, it will be remembered, to which Everard
T'Serclaes belonged. In due course he married, and with his mother's
wealth and privileges, and his father's name and title, doubtless he was
held in high esteem by a large circle of friends; but the lasting fame
of the house of Van Orley was built on another foundation: it was the
result of Jan's intimacy with a lady, name unknown, who was not his
wife, and who in the year 1468 presented him with a son--Valentine van
Orley, the father of Bernard van Orley, and the first of a long line of
painters who throughout no less than six generations practised their art
in Brussels. The last of them was John van Orley, who died in 1735.
[Illustration: THE CENTRAL PANEL OF THE SAINT ANNE TRIPTYCH BY QUENTIN
METSYS, IN THE BRUSSELS GALLERY.]
The register of the Brussels Guild of Saint Luke has disappeared, and
thus it is impossible to say who was Valentine's master. He probably
made a reputation early, for when he was only twenty-two years of age he
took to himself a wife, one Marguerite van Pynbroeck. The wedding was
celebrated at Saint Gudila's on the 13th of May 1490. In 1512 he seems
to have received an important order from Antwerp, for in that year he
left Brussels for the city on the Scheldt, and was admitted a free
master of the local Guild of Saint Luke; and as he received several
apprentices during his sojourn there, he must have remained in Antwerp
some years. We find him again in Brussels in 1527, and this is all that
is at present known of Valentine van Orley, save that he had several
sons who were painters, and several daughters whose husbands followed
the same calling.
If any of Valentine's pictures have come down to us, they have not as
yet been identified. He must have painted a considerable number in the
course of his career, and it is not likely that they have all perished.
In the churches and convents of Belgium and in the various public and
private collections throughout Europe there are a host of Flemish
'primitives' catalogued _inconnu_. It may well be that amongst them are
some of Valentine's works; and note, not a few of these anonymous
paintings are quite as beautiful as some of the authentic pictures of
the greatest masters of the period. Take, for example, in the Brussels
Gallery, the strangely pathetic and gloriously coloured Passion scenes
of the triptych of Oultremont (No. 537); or the 'Martyrdom of Saint
Sebastian' (No. 3E), attributed to Memling and to Dierick Boudts; or the
'Adoration of the Magi' (No. 20), which John van Eyck, Peter Christus
and Gerard David are all said to have painted; or the Saint Gudila
triptych, _Le Christ pleuré par les saintes femmes_ (No. 40), which some
very eminent critics ascribe to Bernard van Orley, and in which others
equally eminent find no trace of his style; or the 'Virgin and Child'
(No. 21), successively given to Hubert van Eyck, Peter Christus, and
Quentin Metsys. In a former edition of his catalogue, Monsieur A. J.
Wauters wrote against this picture, '_Magnifique ouvrage de l' École de
Bruges_.' He would have been on surer ground had he been content with
the first two words of this sentence. It is certainly a _magnifique
ouvrage_, and no more and no less can be aptly said of any of the
above-mentioned pictures.
But to return to the house of Van Orley. The greatest painter which that
house produced--the giant who made pigmies of the rest, was Valentine's
second son, Bernard, who, as his parents were only married in the spring
of 1490, cannot have been born much before 1493. Of his life before 1515
nothing is certainly known. At this time he was settled in Brussels, and
had already made a name, for in 1515 he painted a triptych for the
oratory of the Holy Cross in the Church of Saint Walburge at Furnes, for
which he received 104 _livres parisis_ (the central panel of this
altar-piece is now at Turin); and in 1515 or 1516 he painted the
portraits of the children of Duke Philippe le Beau, and also the
portrait of his son-in-law, Christian II. of Denmark. These pictures
have not come down to us, or at least they have not been identified;
but, doubtless, they were all that could be desired, for shortly after
their completion Marguerite of Austria, whom Charles Quint on the eve of
his departure for Spain had named Regent of the Netherlands, appointed
Orley Court painter; and if they were anything like the portrait which
he painted two years later of Georges Zelle--now in the Brussels Gallery
(No. 42)--they must have been singularly beautiful. This picture is
signed and dated 1519.
Orley was now married and living with his wife, Agnes Zeghers, in a
house on the Senne, hard by the old Church of Saint Géry; and Zelle, who
was town physician and chief medical attendant to the Hospital of Saint
John--an institution which was founded in the twelve hundreds, and which
still exists--was his friend and near neighbour. Here there is an
unsigned picture, dated August 11, 1520--subject, the 'Death of Our
Lady'--which, tradition says, is Van Orley's work. The same year that he
painted the portrait of Georges Zelle, Orley was commissioned by the
_Aumoniers_ of Antwerp to paint an altar-piece for their chapel in the
cathedral there, for which they agreed to pay him 600 florins. This
picture is now in the Antwerp Gallery (No. 741 to No. 745)--subject, the
'Resurrection and the Seven Works of Mercy.' It is not signed.
Van Orley was now making a very considerable income, kept good company,
and was able to give good dinners. Albert Dürer, who spent a week at
Brussels in the summer of 1520, partook of one of them, and thus writes
of it in his journal: 'It was such a magnificent spread that I doubt if
Master Bernard was quit of it for ten florins. Several great folk were
present, whom Bernard had invited to bear me company; amongst others,
the Treasurer of Madame Marguerite (Jean de Marnix, Lord of Toulouse),
whose portrait I painted, the Town Treasurer (Alderman Jan Busleyden),
and the Grand Master of the Palace.'
It was no doubt owing in great measure to 'Madame Marguerite's'
patronage that 'Master Bernard' was able to show such lavish hospitality
to his friends, for though his official _gages_--as Bernard himself
informs us--was only _un patart par jour qu'est bien petite chose_,
sundry valuable privileges were attached to the office of Court painter,
and the accounts of Treasurer Marnix bear witness that Madame was
constantly giving him orders for pictures for which he was always
handsomely paid. Though Marnix describes most of them, hardly any of
these paintings have as yet been identified. There can be no doubt,
however, that one of them at least has come down to us--'un grand
tableau exquis sur la vertu de patience,' which Marguerite commissioned
Bernard to paint for her favourite minister, Count Antoine de Lalaing.
This great triptych is now in the Brussels Gallery (No. 41); it is
described in the official catalogue as _La Patience et les Epreuves de
Job_, and its authenticity is beyond question. It is signed in Latin:
'Bernardus--Dorley--Bruxellanus--Faciebat: Aº Dni MCCCCCXXI IIIIª May,'
and in Flemish--'ELX SYNE TYT. Orley 1521,' and monogramed with the
initials B.V.O. in two places.
This was not the only commission which Bernard executed for his august
mistress in 1521: various sums are entered in the treasury accounts for
that year as having been paid to him for various pictures, which are
there described at length; and then follows this curious item--'Et dix
(pièces d'or) des quels ma dicte dame a fait don à mon dit Maître
Bernard, outre et par dessus les dits achats d'icelles peintures et
marché fait avec luy et ce, en faveur d'aucuns services qu'il a faits à
icelle dame, dont elle ne veut pas qu'il soit fait ici mention.' What
was the mysterious business of which no mention was to be made?
Maître Bernard had evidently succeeded in winning Madame's confidence,
but six years later he thought it worth while to run a serious risk of
losing it. He was imprudent enough to give hospitality to a certain
Lutheran preacher, who had been introduced to him by the King of
Denmark, and to suffer this divine to hold forth in his house upon no
less than four occasions. Protestantism was at this time making headway
in the Netherlands, the Regent was straining every nerve to stem the
rising tide of heresy, and the most stringent penalties had been decreed
not only against the professors of the new teaching, but against all
those who should aid or abet them. It is not surprising, then, that
presently the poor Court painter found himself in the clutches of Master
Nicholas à Montibus, the inquisitor at Louvain. The situation was an
alarming one, and doubtless Bernard thanked his stars when the
inquisitor pronounced sentence; he was ordered to _aller faire amende
honorable à Sainte Gudule_, and to pay a fine of 200 florins. He did not
even lose his situation. When his old friend died two years afterwards,
her successor Marie of Hungary retained him in her service, and on the
12th of January 1534, she commissioned him to paint _un beau exquis et
puissant tableau de bois de Danemarck pour service sur le grand autel de
l' église du couvent de Brou en Bresse_, the church which Marguerite of
Austria had built in memory of her husband, Philibert of Savoy, and
where her bones lie buried. This picture has come down to us; we know
its history, and it is a curious one.
Amongst Marguerite's numerous bequests to the Church of Brou were some
beautiful paintings by Bernard van Orley, which Marie was exceedingly
loath to part with, and she therefore arranged with her aunt's executors
to keep them, and to present to the Church of Brou, by way of
compensation, a triptych for the high altar, hence the commission to the
Court painter of January 12, 1534; but the _beau exquis et puissant
tableau_, which was the outcome of this arrangement, was not destined to
adorn the altar for which it had been ordered. Though Bernard had worked
at it eight years, when he died, on the 21st of January 1542, it was
still unfinished, and eight years later the canons of Notre-Dame, at
Bruges, who were at this time preparing their church for the reception
of the relics of Charles the Bold, purchased it from Van Orley's heirs
for 286 _livres tournois_. The three great panels of _bois de Danemarck_
were conveyed to Bruges in as many wagons, and set up behind the high
altar in the old Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame, where they still
remain, but how much or how little of Van Orley's work is displayed on
them is another question: the triptych was completed by the Bruges
painter, Marc Geerhaerds, in 1561, and about thirty years later the
central panel was entirely repainted and the wings retouched by François
Pourbus. This picture has been removed from its original position, and
now hangs on the west wall of the south aisle--subject, scenes from the
Passion.
Of Bernard van Orley's signed paintings only four have come down to
us:--the Job triptych and the Zelle portrait at Brussels, the Holy
Family at Stockholm, signed B. v. Orley, but not dated, and an
altar-piece at Vienna, showing the death of Saint Thomas and the
election of Saint Mathias, and signed Bernardus van Orley, but not
dated. This picture is the central panel of a triptych which was
formerly in the Church of Notre-Dame du Sablon; the wings are now in the
Brussels Gallery (No. 44A). Open, they represent the Incredulity of
Saint Thomas and the Martyrdom of Saint Mathias, and shut, the same
saints in grisaille, and six kneeling figures, doubtless the donors.
From the fact that four small carpenter's tools are painted on the back
of each of the shutters, it is likely enough that this triptych was
ordered by or for the Carpenters' Guild--a wealthy corporation
intimately connected with the Sablon Church. We know nothing of its
history.
The portrait of Georges Zelle is without question Van Orley's
masterpiece. In colour, composition, technique, this picture is quite
perfect. It was his last effort in the old style, and it gives him the
right to an honourable place in the ranks of the great masters of the
old national school.
Bernard van Orley died on the 21st of January 1542; he was buried in the
Church of Saint Géry, and though his tomb disappeared when the church
was destroyed, a drawing of it has come down to us. It was emblazoned
with the arms of the lords of Orley, without a bend sinister.
[Illustration: From S. Rombold's Malines.]