PRIMITIVES AND LATER PAINTERS
In the Low Countries, perhaps more than in any other part of Europe, has
the many-sided life of the people revealed itself through the various
forms of artistic expression. Religion, industry, struggles for
independence, the power of the guilds, the splendour of the dukes of
Burgundy, the landscape, the homes, the people themselves, all are found
in Belgian art. They were pictured in the delicate tracery of cloistered
illuminators, carved in wood or stone in the old churches, enshrined
within the wooden panels of ancient triptychs, and woven into the
storied tapestries of hall and castle. They figured in the canvases of
the Renaissance masters, and after the "Dark Ages" of the Spanish
oppression, were revived in a new race of modern painters, who depicted
the life of the young nation. The true greatness, the real charm of
Belgium has lain in her art.
Obviously, the two great periods of Belgian art were the fifteenth and
the seventeenth centuries, but it by no means follows that no other
periods are worthy of our consideration; indeed, we cannot understand
the school of the van Eycks without studying the three centuries
preceding the fifteenth. Before the days of Hubert van Eyck there were
at Bruges masters of whom he learned, and whose style can hardly be
distinguished from his own. A hundred years earlier than the van Eycks
was the great age of architecture, when cathedrals and mighty
cloth-halls rose on Flemish plains, and sculpture, stained glass and
wrought iron were all called for to decorate the wonderful structures.
Still earlier, many a patient monk in his cell traced with loving care
those illuminations that made the beauty of missal and breviary. The van
Eycks and Memling were the lineal descendants of these artists.
Toward the fourteenth century, the exquisite vignettes of the
illuminators displayed marvelous grace and delicacy of execution,
cleverness of design, and great brilliancy of colour. To quote from a
French writer, "In the hands of the miniature painters of Bruges, gold
glistens, it sparkles. Their colours, if they are not more beautiful,
are as beautiful as those of nature. Their flesh tints vie with the
freshness of colour of young girls, just as in their arabesques and in
their frames we think we see currants and strawberries ripening and
breathe the perfume of flowers."
At this time, painters and illuminators were in some sense rivals. They
were enrolled in separate guilds at Bruges. "The Guild of St. Luke
included painters, saddlers, glass-makers and mirror-makers; that of St.
John illuminators, calligraphers, binders and image-painters." Painters
were allowed to use oil-colours, but illuminators were limited to
water-colours. It became the aim of the former to transfer to their
canvases and their wooden panels the same vividness of colouring that
the latter produced upon vellum. Doubtless many artists were at work at
this problem, which was finally solved by Hubert van Eyck.
Another important factor in forming the Flemish school was the influence
of the guilds. In the fourteenth century, the painter was a craftsman
and as rigidly bound by the laws of his guild as any carpenter or mason.
He was apprenticed to a master for perhaps five years, during which he
was taught the secrets of the craft. He learned to choose the wood for
his panel and make it ready for use. He mixed the fine plaster with
which to cover the wood, and the durability of his picture depended on
the care he used in this and the evenness of the coating. For every
implement with which he worked, every colour that entered into his
picture, he must depend upon himself. He must prepare his own oils and
varnishes. If he wished to make a drawing, he often was obliged to work
with the silver-point, and to prepare his paper himself; if he drew in
chalk or charcoal, he had to make his own selection of materials.
After the apprenticeship came the years of wandering, when the young
painter could work for any master he pleased, could travel as far afield
as he chose, and in this way gain experience and a store of valuable
impressions. When he returned to his home, he was admitted to the
painters' guild, provided he could satisfy its officers that he was
competent; if so, he could take his position as a master of the craft.
Even then he was not free from the supervision of the fraternity. His
master's oath bound him to honesty and to do his work "as in the sight
of God." Its officers inspected his materials and his output, and if
either was found to be below the standard he was punished. Every
contract must be fulfilled to the letter, and the guild officers were
the arbiters in case of any dispute. Finally, all his implements were
marked with the sign of the guild.
Pictures of the cities of Flanders in the fifteenth century bear witness
to their artistic splendour. Says an English writer of Bruges at that
time, "The squares were adorned with fountains; its bridges with statues
in bronze; the public buildings and many of the private houses with
statuary and carved work, the beauty of which was heightened and brought
out by gilding and polychrome; the windows were rich with storied glass,
and the walls of the interiors adorned with paintings in distemper, or
hung with gorgeous tapestry." It was in surroundings such as these and
under the stimulus of competition with his brother craftsmen that Hubert
van Eyck made his great discovery of a manner of using oil in painting
large pieces that would make it possible to equal the brilliant colours
of the illuminators. The Flemings kept the secret of the new process so
well that it was not disclosed to Italian artists until toward the end
of the fifteenth century.
But this discovery in technique is not his only claim to renown. His
achievements as a painter were even greater than his skill as a
craftsman. A high authority says that the beauty of the Virgin in the
Adoration of the Lamb "places it in the rank of the Madonnas of
Leonardo da Vinci and of Raphael." This genius of the Middle Ages and
his younger brother have left Belgium in the famous triptych a lofty
composition in which the marvelous technique that has wrought the
colours together till the surface is like enamel is combined with beauty
of landscape and skill in portraiture. In the inscription placed upon it
we read: "Hubert van Eyck, than whom none greater has appeared, began
the work, which Jan his brother, in art the second, brought to
completion."
Almost nothing is known of the life of Hubert van Eyck. He was born at
Maaseyck about the year 1366, and lived at Bruges with his brother and
their sister Margaret, who was also a painter. He was made a member of
the painters' guild of Ghent in 1421, the year in which he left the
service of the powerful lord afterward known as Philip the Good. Three
years later, Jodocus Vydts, burgomaster of Ghent, and his wife Isabella
gave him an order for an altar-piece to be placed in their mortuary
chapel in the cathedral. His work was cut short by his death in 1426. It
is impossible to tell how much was done by his hand and how much by his
brother Jan, but there seems good reason to believe that Hubert painted
the central panels in the upper row, and that Jan was the artist of the
Adoration panel below these. Through some strange lack of appreciation
in the custodians of this masterpiece, Brussels and Berlin were able to
purchase the wings, so that those we saw at Ghent were only copies.
Hubert van Eyck's body was laid in the chapel of the Vydts' in the
cathedral of St. Bavon, near his masterpiece, but we are told that his
severed right arm was placed in a reliquary in the cathedral itself. No
doubt it was considered a sacred relic! His epitaph was carved on a
shield, supported by a marble skeleton. The following free translation
of this quaint old Flemish verse was made by William B. Scott:[6]
[6] "Gems of Modern Belgian Art."
"Whoe'er thou art who walkest overhead,
Behold thyself in stone: for I yestreen,
Was seemly and alert like thee: now dead,
Nailed up and earthed, and for the last time green;
The first spring greenness and the last decay
Are hidden here forever from the day.
I, Hubert van Eyck, whom all Bruges' folks hailed
Worthy of lauds, am now with worms engrailed.
My soul, with many pangs by God constrained,
Fled in September, when the corn is wained,
Just fourteen hundred years and twenty-six
Since Lord Christ did invent the crucifix.
Lovers of Art, pray for me that I gain
God's grace, nor find I've painted, lived, in vain."
[Illustration: "L'HOMME À L'OEUILLET."--VAN EYCK.]
Jan van Eyck was courtier as well as artist. As a young man, he was
employed by John of Bavaria, Bishop of Liège, and after the death of his
brother we hear of him as gentleman of the chamber to Philip the Good,
Duke of Burgundy, by whom he was sent on various missions. One of his
journeys was made to Portugal, where he painted the portrait of Princess
Isabella, who afterward became the second wife of the Duke, and in whose
honour the Order of the Golden Fleece was founded. His famous picture
called "L'homme à l'oeuillet," was the portrait of Jean de Roubaix,
who accompanied him to Portugal and arranged the marriage of the
Princess with the great Duke. Jan seems to have possessed the modesty of
true greatness, for on more than one of his pictures is found the motto,
"Als Ikh Kan," As I can. During the latter part of his life he lived at
Bruges, where he died in 1440.
In the midst of his court duties, Jan found time to go on with the great
altar-piece, which he completed in 1432. A few years later, he produced
what is perhaps his finest religious painting next to the Adoration, the
Madonna of the Canon van der Paele. This picture represents the Virgin
and Child enthroned in a stately basilica, probably the cathedral of
St. Donatian at Bruges. In the foreground, on the right stands St.
George, on the left St. Donatian. On the Virgin's left, upon his knees,
is George van der Paele, Canon of St. Donatian, the donor of the
painting.
This Virgin and St. Donatian by Jan van Eyck would make one think, says
Fromentin, "that the art of painting had said its last word, and that
from the first hour. And yet, without changing either theme or method,
Memling was going to say something more."
A tradition cherished by the Flemings has it that Hans Memling, in the
year 1477, dragged himself, sick and needy, to the gates of St. John's
Hospital in Bruges, where he was tenderly nursed back to health, and
that, in gratitude, he painted for the hospital the pictures that have
ever since been its pride. This may or may not be true, but a detail in
the Marriage of St. Catherine seems designed to confirm the legend. It
represents a man dropping exhausted in the street, who is then revived
by some cooling drink, and afterward borne to the hospital. We can not
but feel that the artist is giving us here an incident from his personal
history.
The little we know of Memling's life may be told in very few words. In
1450, he painted the portrait of Isabella, Duchess of Burgundy, whose
likeness Jan van Eyck had journeyed to Portugal to make twenty-two years
before. After the death of Philip the Good, no doubt he was court
painter to Charles the Rash and in the year of the latter's defeat and
death at Nancy took refuge in Bruges. Here he married and came into
possession of some property through his wife, he painted his greatest
works, and died in 1495.
In the quaint chapter-room of the old hospital, itself dating from the
thirteenth century, Memling's compositions found an appropriate setting.
Here was the great triptych of the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine, an
altar-piece for the high altar of the church connected with the
hospital; two smaller triptychs, one of the Three Kings, the other a
Pietà; the portrait of Mary Moreel, and a diptych ordered by Martin van
Nieuwenhoven, on which is Memling's finest piece of portraiture, the
likeness of the donor. "The man himself is no very superb specimen of
humanity; he has a bright and pleasant though rather foolish face; but
such as he is Memling has caught the idea of him, and placed him visibly
and knowably on the panel.... Its colouring is unusual and most
beautiful. The textures of the garments are superb, and not only are
the little landscapes seen through the open windows full of the charm
that Memling always threw into his backgrounds, but the charm extends to
the interior of the room, with its stained glass windows, paneled walls,
looking-glass and other pieces of furniture."[7]
[7] Conway.
But the most interesting work by the great Fleming that the hospital
contains is the world-famed reliquary of St. Ursula. This chest, in
shape like a tiny Gothic chapel, only three feet long and two feet ten
inches high, bears on its sides in six arched panels the legend of St.
Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins. The saint and her maidens are
seen landing at Cologne, arriving at Basle, and received in Rome by the
Sovereign Pontiff himself, who joins them for the return voyage down the
Rhine. They are awaited at Cologne by the cruel Huns, who shoot them
down without mercy, and, last of all, the saintly princess suffers
martyrdom.
This story is told in panels only one foot in width. The little pictures
are crowded with figures dressed in the sumptuous costumes of the Court
of Burgundy. Genuine landscapes are introduced in the backgrounds--the
city of Cologne and the scenery along the Rhine are pictured from
sketches which the artist made himself. These tiny paintings have the
brilliant colouring of the van Eycks and the finish of detail of the old
illuminators. They show the tenderness, the fancy, the patient industry
of the master. "Gentle, cordial, affectionate, humble, painstaking as
Memling must have been, his best works are those of the St. Ursula
series type, where his fancy could play about bright and fairy-like
creatures, where no storm nor the memory of a storm need ever come,
where no clouds darkened the sky, and not even the brilliant tones of
sunset gave forecast of a coming night."[8]
[8] Conway.
[Illustration: ST. LUKE PAINTING THE MADONNA.--VAN DER WEYDEN.]
Another of the early Flemish masters was Roger van der Weyden. His St.
Luke Painting the Madonna, in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, is
considered one of the masterpieces of that gallery.
As an artist, Roger van der Weyden was the equal of neither the van
Eycks nor Memling, but he was greater as a master. His art combined the
religious symbolism of the Middle Ages with the new naturalism of Jan
van Eyck, and its effect was wide-spread. The Germans made his paintings
their standard, the Italians acknowledged his greatness, and the artists
of the Low Countries all formed their style under his teaching or
strove to imitate his work.
I have never seen a keener and juster analysis of the art of the Flemish
primitives than that given by Conway, in his "Early Flemish Artists,"
from which I quote: "Jan van Eyck was a man of fact, his work is an
attempt to state the uttermost truth about things.... In his pictures,
light and shade, texture, colour and outline have about equal stress
laid upon them. In this respect he was one of the most complete of
artists." Roger van der Weyden "laid chief stress upon outlines,
striving to make them graceful so far as in him lay.... Memling was
formed of milder stuff.... He was a painter of fairy tales, not of
facts.... To lose oneself in a picture of his is to take a pleasant and
healthy rest."
The same critic adds this beautiful characterization of early Flemish
art in general: "The paintings of Flanders were not, and were not
intended to be, popular. Flemish artists did not, like the Italians,
paint for the folk, but for the delight of a small clique of cultured
and solid individuals. They painted as their employers worked, with
energy, honesty and endurance; they cared not for beauty of the more
palpable and less enduring kind, but they cared infinitely for Truth;
for her they laboured in humility, satisfied with the joy of their own
obedience, and then, when they slept and knew not of it, she came and
clothed the children of their industry with her own unfading garments of
loveliness and life."
Between the glorious past of the van Eycks and Memling and the brilliant
future of Rubens and Jordaens, stands Quentin Matsys, the founder of the
Antwerp school, who died in 1530. He was the great master of the
Gothic-Renaissance transition, showing the influence of the Renaissance,
while still clinging to Gothic types. His paintings include religious
subjects and incidents drawn from daily life. His "women of a
goddess-like delicacy with almond eyes and long slim fingers," lived a
mystical life among transparent, glassy columns and carpets with exotic
embroideries. The men have an air of distinction. He often leans as far
toward caricature, however, as he does toward sentimentality, and there
are great contrasts in his work--grimacing, long-nosed, carousing old
men and lovely women. "None understands as well as Matsys how to make
strong splendours of colour shine through a thin veil of mist, or how to
paint the tremulous surface of life so that we see the blood running in
the veins."
From "Master Quentin's" prime until Rubens brought back to Flanders the
results of his studies in Italy was nearly one hundred years--years that
covered the Spanish oppression of the Low Countries under Charles V and
Philip II, years that saw Flanders desolated by the Duke of Alva. But
out of the decay of Flemish art rose Peter Paul Rubens, born in 1577.
John Rubens, the father of the painter, was a lawyer in Antwerp. As he
favoured the Protestants, he found it the safest course, when the Duke
of Alva's reign of terror began, to take refuge with his family across
the border at Cologne. Here he became the legal adviser of Anne of
Saxony, wife of William the Silent, who preferred to reside comfortably
at Cologne while he was off fighting the Spaniards.
The result of this association was a scandal of the most serious nature,
and only the efforts of his forgiving wife and the desire of the house
of Orange to hush up the affair, saved Master Rubens from the penalty of
death, as prescribed by the German law of that day. His sentence was
commuted to imprisonment for life, but after two years of close
confinement he was permitted to live with his family in Siegen, on
condition of giving himself up again whenever summoned. It was during
this time that Peter Paul, "the most Flemish of all the Flemings," was
born at Siegen, on German soil.
After the death of John Rubens, his widow returned with her family to
Antwerp, where the little Peter Paul was sent to a school on the site of
the present Milk Market, until he was thirteen years old. Then, as he
was a bright, handsome boy, the Countess van Lalaing received him as
page into her house, where she held a miniature court. He was in the
service of the Countess only one year, but the training he gained in
that time gave him the courtesy and ease of manners that made him, in
after years, perfectly at home in the presence of princes.
In his boyhood Rubens had shown his love of art by making it his chief
amusement to copy the illustrations in his mother's large family Bible,
and after leaving the Countess van Lalaing, he persuaded his mother to
let him study painting. For four years he was the pupil of Adam van
Noort, and afterward of Otto van Veen, also called Vaenius, after the
fashion of the day. At that time van Veen was the most noted painter in
Antwerp. Two years more of study, and Rubens was admitted into the
Guild of St. Luke, and the following year he assisted his master in
decorating the city for the Joyous Entry of the Archdukes Albert and
Isabella.
The young painter's next step was to seek inspiration in Italy, and in
1600 he went to Venice to study Titian and Veronese. Here he copied old
masters, painted portraits, and attracted the attention of the Duke of
Mantua, who became his patron. In 1603 he was sent to Spain by the Duke,
and took with him many paintings as a present for Philip III. When he
went home to Flanders in 1608, Albert and Isabella made him court
painter in order that they might keep him in Antwerp.
Rubens was twice married. His first wife, Isabella Brant, made his home
happy for seventeen years, and is commemorated in several paintings.
Helena Fourment, whom he married four years after Isabella's death, was
a girl of sixteen who was considered remarkably beautiful, and if we may
judge by the use he made of her as a model, this opinion of her was
fully shared by her husband. Besides the numerous portraits of her--in
every possible position, sitting, standing or walking, handsomely
dressed or nearly nude, alone or with her husband or children, in her
own person or as Bathsheba, Dido or Andromeda--she appears in such
large compositions as the Garden of Love and the Judgment of Paris.
The paintings of Rubens have always been the special pride of Antwerp.
The Elevation of the Cross and the Descent from the Cross were the
treasures of the cathedral. The first was painted in 1610, soon after
his return from Italy, and the second but little later. There are six
known variants of the Descent from the Cross. The one in the cathedral
is a wonderful composition, brilliant in its conception and marvelously
drawn. The Elevation is by some critics considered finer than its
companion picture. The Christ à la Paille, the "Coup de Lance," the
Adoration of the Kings, and the Last Communion of St. Francis are all in
the Antwerp Museum.
Fromentin, writing of Rubens in 1876, thus spoke of Malines and works of
the great artist that were treasured there: "There are only two things
that have outlived its past splendour, some extremely costly sanctuaries
and the pictures by Rubens. These pictures are the celebrated triptych
of the Magi, in St. John's, and the no less celebrated triptych of the
Miraculous Draught of Fishes, which belongs to the Church of Notre
Dame."
In this connection it is interesting to read how, when the Germans were
shelling Malines for the second time, early last September, a Red Cross
worker saved the Adoration of the Magi. The church had not yet suffered
from the German shells. "This large work, composed of two side panels
and a center piece, being on panel, was too heavy for two men to handle.
I was first compelled to break into the church, for everybody had fled
from the stricken town, and after many endeavours to find help,
commandeered the only police officer available, two fine gendarmes and a
locksmith. These men, with the utmost good will, helped us to rig a
tackle over the famous picture, and, after two or three hours' work, we
were rejoiced to see our exertions crowned with success, for the three
parts of the picture were down, without the slightest scratch. We
commandeered from a village close by a dray and two horses, lashed the
central piece of the picture between soft pads of hay and blankets, and
sent it under the care of one of our men into safety at ----. The two
side panels I took away myself in my own car."
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, which had been removed from the church
of Notre Dame, and was found in a corridor of a public gymnasium,
lying bare against the wall and without any protection whatever, was
saved in the same way. The shrine of St. Rombaut, "a very costly work of
silver and gold, about three feet high and five feet long," was rescued
before the destruction of the cathedral, and sent to a secret place of
safety. It is a "valuable specimen of antique goldsmith's work." Many
altar furnishings in gold and silver, beautiful laces, and a number of
paintings, among them two more that are attributed to Rubens, were also
included among the articles saved.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A MAN AND HIS WIFE.--RUBENS.]
Rubens was a prolific artist, and his pictures are to be found in all
the great galleries of Europe, besides a small number in American
private houses and museums. An interesting example of these is the
portrait of a man and his wife, in the collection of Mrs. Robert D.
Evans of Boston, now in the Museum of Fine Arts.
Rubens had all the industry, honesty, and brilliancy of colour of the
great Flemings. He had, besides, greatness of conception and breadth of
composition. A distinguished English painter calls him "perhaps the
greatest master in the mechanical part of the art, the best workman with
his tools, that ever exercised a pencil." His paintings glow with
vitality; they depict natural life in landscapes, in animals, in human
beings. Many of his works are on large canvases and depict gross and
sensual subjects. His Madonnas are often unsatisfying; his figures of
Christ seldom bear the impress of the Godhead; with one or two notable
exceptions the life of the spirit is lacking in his work. One of these
exceptions is the Last Communion of St. Francis, which was at last
accounts in the Antwerp Museum. The dying saint in the foreground has
raised himself on his knees, and is even stretching toward the
officiating priest on the left. His weak body is supported by a monk on
the right. His face is radiant with spiritual exaltation and an
earnestness of purpose that would hold even death in check until the
holy wafer has passed his lips. In this picture Rubens has pierced the
veil and revealed the things that cannot be known by the senses.
Fromentin says of it: "When one has made a prolonged study of this
unequalled work in which Rubens is transfigured, one can no longer look
at anything, neither any person, nor other paintings, not even Rubens
himself; for today one must leave the Museum."
But Rubens was the head of a school of painting--the later Flemish
school. His studio was thronged with young artists, who were assistants
as well as students. With his keenness of observation directed to a line
of business, the master quickly discovered what each pupil could do
best, and set him at that part of a composition. In this way Rubens was
enabled to produce the immense number of pictures that bear his
name--thirteen hundred have been catalogued. One student would paint
nothing but landscapes, another all the animals, while the teacher put
in the most important parts and added the finishing touches to the
whole. There was no deceit in this method of working, for the amount of
Rubens' own work a given piece contained depended upon the price his
clients were willing to pay. The design was always his, but those who
paid the lowest price got nothing but the design from his hand, while
his wealthy patrons who could afford the maximum received pieces that
were entirely his own handiwork, and between the two extremes there were
all grades of collaboration.
Jacob Jordaens was one of the most famous of Rubens' pupils. It is said
that "they are of the same family and the same temperament; and Rubens
stands between Jordaens and van Dyck. Rubens is gold, van Dyck silver,
and Jordaens blood and fire." The latter was an indefatigable painter
and a rapid worker, often completing a portrait at a single sitting. He
covered a wide range of subjects, religious, allegorical, landscapes,
portraits and animals, and he succeeded so well that "there are Jordaens
attributed to Rubens and Rubens to Jordaens."
Anthony van Dyck was another pupil of the great master, and the
aristocrat of the famous seventeenth century Flemings. He was only a boy
among boys, quite undistinguished, until one day chancing to rub against
a painting of his teacher's on which the paint was still wet, he
retouched it so skilfully that it turned out better than before. In time
he became so formidable a rival, in spite of his youth, that Rubens sent
him off to Italy to study. He came back in four years, greater than
ever. A few years later, Rubens contrived to have him called to England
as court painter. During the time that he remained in Flanders he
produced several religious pictures, among them the Raising of the
Cross, at Courtrai, and a Crucifixion, which, before the war, was in the
Cardinal's palace at Malines. The same Red Cross worker who rescued the
Rubens from destruction at Malines also brought away this composition,
of which he says, that it had been cut out of its frame the day before,
rolled up, and stowed away in the cellar. But van Dyck's best work
was done in portraiture, and in this he was "nearly the equal of
Titian."
[Illustration: CHARLES I AND HIS FAMILY.--VAN DYCK.]
Van Dyck so quickly became a great favourite of Charles I that he was
knighted within three months after going to England. He painted the King
and Queen many times. The portrait of Charles I in the Louvre was done
at the height of his skill. He loved to paint kings and nobles, in
velvet and silken garments trimmed with rare old lace. For ten years he
was court painter in England, and so many of his portraits are still in
the great houses there that a family portrait by van Dyck is said to be
"tantamount in England to a patent of nobility." After the execution of
Charles, he went to Flanders and to Paris seeking commissions, but his
popularity had waned, and he returned to England broken in health and
spirit, and died there in 1641. His body rests in St. Paul's Cathedral.
Van Dyck painted cavaliers, and he himself belonged to that type. His
work is so individual that it is easily recognized. A charming
adventurer, a popular courtier, he was a favourite of kings, was fêted
in foreign countries. At the close of his life, he is called "a man in
ruins, who until his last hour has the good fortune, and this is the
most extraordinary thing about him, to preserve his greatness when he
paints."
The annals of the seventeenth century are filled with the names of a
host of artists of more or less renown, followers of Rubens and van
Dyck. But "for the Flemish school, the eighteenth century is a long
entr'acte, during which the stage, so nobly occupied of old, is sad and
deserted."
The modern Belgian school of art started in Antwerp after the Revolution
of 1830. At first it corresponded to the romantic movement in France, of
which Delaroche was one of the leaders, but with this difference, that
the Belgians chose their subjects for the most part from the age-long
battle for freedom waged by their country. The most distinguished of
these "romantic" Belgian artists were Louis Galliat and Edouard Biefve.
The "historic" and "archaic" schools of these modern painters included
Leys and his followers, whose work is interesting because they sought to
reproduce the characteristics of van Eyck and Memling. The frescos in
the Antwerp town hall by Leys, illustrating the charters and the
privileges of that city in olden times, are called by Max Rooses,
"monumental creations by a great master of the art of painting." Henri
de Braekeleer had the art of investing the most prosaic subjects with
interest. He painted the ordinary things of daily life, a wine-shop, an
old man at his printing, in a way that glorified them.
The insane artist, Wiertz, thought himself the second Rubens, and
produced a number of huge canvases. The Wiertz Museum had an astonishing
collection of the works of this artist--paintings on every imaginable
theme, ranging from "wild nightmares of the brain" to such impressive
compositions as the Contest for the Body of Patroclus, after the manner
of Rubens, and the Triumph of Christ, a sublime work showing great
originality and wonderful power of execution.
Much remarkably good restoration of paintings has been done by modern
Belgian artists. An amusing story has come to me of an artist who was
employed to touch up a large painting in an old church. When he
presented his bill the committee in charge refused payment unless the
details were specified. Whereupon he presented the items as follows:
To correcting the ten commandments $5.12
To embellishing Pontius Pilate and putting new ribbons
on his hat 3.02
To putting new tail on rooster of St. Peter and
mending his comb 2.20
To repluming and gilding left wing of the Guardian
Angel 5.18
To washing the servant of the High Priest and
putting carmine on his cheeks 5.02
To renewing Heaven, adjusting the Stars and cleaning
up the moon 7.14
To touching up Purgatory and restoring Lost Souls 3.06
To brightening up the flames of Hell and putting new
tail on the Devil, mending his left hoof and doing
several odd jobs for the damned 7.17
To rebordering the robes of Herod and adjusting his
wig 4.00
To taking the spots off the son of Tobias 1.30
To cleaning Balaam's Ass and putting new shoe on
him 1.70
To putting rings in Sarah's ears 1.71
To putting new stone in David's sling and enlarging
the head of Goliath and extending Saul's legs 6.13
To decorating Noah's Ark and putting head on Shem 4.31
To mending the shirt of the Prodigal Son and cleaning
his ear 3.39
$60.45
Belgium has lost none of her interest in artistic expression. At the
Academy in Antwerp, there were about two thousand art students before
the war, and about sixteen thousand in all Belgium. Perhaps the most
noted living painters at that time were Stevens and Wauters, and Madame
Ronner, who was famous for her pictures of cats. The studio of
Blanc-Grin, in Brussels, was the center of present-day painters when we
were there.
Belgium has never been so famous for its sculptors as for its painters.
Among the moderns, Jef Lambeaux took high rank, but Constantin Meunier,
of Liège, was perhaps the greatest. "He was _par excellence_," says Max
Rooses, "the sculptor of the workman: first of the Hainault coal-miner,
then of the worker of all trades and countries.... He finally arrived at
investing his models with truly classic beauty. They became the heroes
of a grand drama, now commanding the flames of tall furnaces and
measuring their strength with the most terrible of the elements, now
cutting the corn and tying it in sheaves, defying the almost equally
murderous heat of the sun."
In a notice of the Royal Academy Exhibition in London, in May of the
present year, we read, "Almost the only work universally praised in the
press reviews of the opening day is by a Belgian sculptor, Egide
Rombeaux. It is a statue of more than life size, entitled 'Premier
Morning.'" One critic says, that outside the charmed circle where Rodin
reigns supreme, no sculpture more remarkable in originality and poetry
of conception has been seen of late years in a public exhibition.
Belgian art has not lost its vitality. Will it not emerge from its
baptism of fire with the consecration of a noble purpose to express the
honour, the patriotism, the self-sacrifice, that have glorified the
land?