ART OF THE LOW COUNTRIES
“They sit there in the shadow and shine
Of the flickering fire of the winter night,
Figures in colour and design
Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine,
Half darkness and half light.”
The art of the North is that of Protestantism, Catholicism is that of
the South. This is the first impression borne in upon us by a quick
survey of the rooms devoted to the art of the Netherlands and of
Germany. The delight in life that is so marked in the Italian school has
given way to a sterner, more prosaic, more realistic ideal. The
traditions of a classic past, deeply rooted in the beautiful land where
nature is so kindly, have no hold on these other lands where the
conditions of life are hard and strenuous. In Italy the Catholic Church
preserved the traditions of saints and rules the life of the people. In
the fifteenth century the Reformation swept over Europe and divided the
continent into two opposing camps of faith, the Catholic and the
Protestant. The northern countries declared for the Protestant faith.
The Madonna was no longer the presiding inspiration of genius there, the
legends of saints no longer furnished the theme of northern painter’s
dreams. Art patronage became secular instead of ecclesiastical.
Portraiture, landscape-painting, genre-painting—and by genre-painting I
mean the painting which takes its subjects from the small incidents of
everyday life—these have replaced the old ideals. Instead of altarpieces
we have great portrait groups of the members of guilds and corporations.
Early portraiture was very faithful. Every wrinkle, every line was set
down.
Protestant art has ever been the art of the people, and realism is the
note of this art. The brothers Hubert and Jan Van Eyck were the chief
exponents of realism. They were born at Eyck-sur-Meuse, and they lived
and died there. If not the first inventors of the modern process of
oil-painting, they brought it to perfection, and, above all, they
brought it into common use. Up to this time tempera was the usual medium
for painting. Tempera consisted of grinding the colours with chalk and
laying them on with water, with white of egg, with size, or the juice of
unripe figs. Damp was the chief enemy of tempera. The Italian artists
had tried to mix their colours with oil and the result had been
unsatisfactory, for the great objection to the use of oil was the long
time it took to dry. The brothers Van Eyck understood chemistry, and
they did not rest in their experiments until they had discovered a
medium which hastened the drying and did not involve the necessity of
exposing the colours to the sun. Nowadays we mix our colours with an oil
medium, and we varnish them when the picture is finished. By the Van
Eyck’s method the varnish was incorporated with the surface colours.
Look at this wonderful painting by Jan Van Eyck (1390–1440); it is the
portrait of Jan Arnolfini and his wife (186). They stand in a room that
is a model of elegant neatness. She is dressed in the rich and ample
garments that were the fashion of the day; her gaunt husband, holding
her hand, stands beside her. He looks somewhat of a caricature with his
big hat drawn down to his ears, his fur-bordered tunic from under which
peep his thin legs and slippered feet. His right hand is raised. We feel
that this worthy couple looked just as they do in this picture when they
stood for Jan Van Eyck more than four hundred years ago. He painted them
with relentless fidelity.
See how perfectly the colours are preserved, how fresh is the green of
the woman’s immense mantle—fresh as if it had been painted yesterday.
Jan Van Eyck knew the nature of every colour, how one colour affects the
others. Sir Joshua Reynolds and Turner did not know chemistry as applied
to painting, or they were in too great a hurry to obtain their effects.
Their colours darken and crack; we can guess only at the first glow of
their pictures. Those of Van Eyck appear as they looked when they left
the easel. How marvellous also is the minuteness of the details. See the
circular mirror behind the husband and wife, with scenes of the Passion
let into its frame. Every object in the room is reflected therein—the
oranges on the window sill, the slippers on the floor; two additional
figures in a room beyond are seen through an open door. A branch brass
chandelier hangs from the ceiling; this chandelier still exists. At the
woman’s feet in the foreground is a poodle. The whole picture is a page
of the intimate, orderly, religious life of the time. Above is the
signature of the artist, which, in its ornamentation and its clearness,
is a work of art. “As I can, not as I would,” is the motto inscribed—the
motto that resumes all Van Eyck’s hopes and aims. By the side of this
great picture is a small portrait believed to be that of Jan Van Eyck
himself. It shows a middle-aged man with a red kerchief wound round his
head, and it is painted with unequalled strength, truthfulness, and
minuteness.
Gerard David (1450–1523) was a painter of exalted and religious feeling.
“A Canon and his Patron Saints” (1045) is full of fervour, but I think
his most typical picture is “The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine”
(1432)—a theme often chosen by painters of the Middle Ages. This picture
shows a walled garden, beyond which we see the buildings of a town. The
Virgin is seated on a throne, the infant Christ is on her knee; He bends
forward to place a ring on St. Catherine’s finger. On the right is
seated St. Barbara holding an open book, and St. Mary Magdalene with the
vase of precious ointment in her lap. As is usual in these pictures, we
see the donor, Canon Richard Van der Capelle, accompanied by his
greyhound, kneeling before the Madonna and the Child. Every detail in
the picture is carried out with marvellous care, and through every
detail breathes the religious genius of the painter.
His contemporary was Mabuse (1470–1541), a most conscientious painter,
whose elaborate finish and brilliant colouring are very noticeable in
all his works (656, 946, 1689). This latter picture, “Portrait of a Man
and his Wife,” is quite a masterpiece of finished detail and of breadth
of effect. There are many portraits by him, and, although Mabuse was not
equal to the best painters of his time, we must note the high perfection
of finish in all his pictures.
Quentin Massys (before 1460–1530) was perhaps the greatest Belgian
painter of his time. He raised the school of Antwerp to a higher level
than that of any other Flemish school. He is usually called the smith of
Antwerp, because he began life as a blacksmith. He gave up this
profession to take up art, for which he had shown signs of genius almost
from childhood. He had little feeling for real beauty of form, but he
had an earnestness, a tenderness, and a clearness of colouring that
redeemed all his faults. The one picture that we have by him in the
National Gallery is the “Salvator Mundi and the Virgin Mary” (295). The
colouring of the Christ is somewhat heavy, but there is so much delicacy
of feeling, so much expression that it ranks among the masterpieces we
possess.
Roger Van der Weyden (1400–1464) some say was a pupil of Jan Van Eyck,
but very little is known about him. That he was a native of Tournay,
that he was deeply religious, that he visited Italy, that he wielded a
great influence over the early Flemish school, and that Memling was his
pupil is about all that we know about Van der Weyden. The three pictures
in the National Gallery (664, 711, 712) show the intensity of his faith.
The two last are heads and hands of the Madonna and of Christ on a gold
background.
“Husband and Wife” (653), sometimes called “The Painter and his Wife,”
is often ascribed to Roger Van der Weyden, but now is generally held to
be by a member of his school. The man has a resolute and serious face,
“the woman is sweet and motherly.” I should like to think it is a
portrait of Van der Weyden and his wife, but it is doubtful.
“A Reading Magdalen” (654) belongs to the school of Van der Weyden; it
is believed to be by one of his pupils. The Magdalen is dressed in the
cumbrous draperies of the time. I cannot imagine how women walked thus
attired. Her hair is gathered under a heavy coif, and she is reading; at
her feet lies the alabaster box of ointment. Her face is plain, but
there is in it so much sweetness, so much absorption in her study that
it attracts the beholder.
There are a great many legendary records concerning Memling, the painter
of Bruges. One of the most charming tells that, at the Battle of Nancy
in 1477, where Count Charles the Bold lost his life, a wounded soldier
was brought into the Hospital of St. John at Bruges. His name was
Memling. He had been a painter before he became a soldier; during his
long convalescence love for his art returned, and there also returned
the old enthusiasm for religion. Tradition says he loved the young nun
who spent her days nursing the sick and who used to sing and pray in the
chapel. The soldier recovered from his wounds and he took to painting
once more. He painted the marvellous pictures that are still in the
Hospital of St. John and that are the treasures of the place. The
reliquary of St. Ursula is among them. It is a shrine about four feet in
length. On one of its gable ends is a painting of the Madonna and Child
with two of the sisters of the order kneeling before them. On the other
is the picture of St. Ursula with the arrows that were the instrument of
her martyrdom and the Virgins hiding under her mantle. There are
medallions of Ursula painted on the ceiling of the shrine, showing the
saint leading up to heaven a procession of maidens martyred with her. I
can imagine the young nun Memling loved inspiring his work, and being
the unconscious model from which he painted. Through the picture “The
Virgin and Infant Christ enthroned in a Garden” (686) breathes the
spirit of Memling’s art. The figures are seated in a peaceful enclosure.
Oh, how serene is the light that shines over the alleys! The Virgin has
an angular charm of her own with her high arched eyebrows, her lofty
brow, her beautiful slim figure, her long hair, and her mild eyes under
drooping lids. On her right is an angel playing a guitar, on her left is
St. George trampling under his feet the dragon which symbolises sin. In
the front is the donor of the picture kneeling to the divine Infant, who
is turning over the pages of a book His mother is holding while He
listens to the angelic music. It is a picture that sets us dreaming and
thinking of that wonderful story. There are two other pictures by
Memling (709, 747). His landscape backgrounds are always very clear, and
are peaceful, as was his soul.