better; the other was formerly known as the Strandlooper van Haarlem
and shows the vigorous brush-work of the master. It is the head of a
saucy fisher-boy, the colour scheme unusual for Hals. The Quentin
Matsys pictures are strong; among others the portrait of Peter Gillis
with his shrewd, strongly marked physiognomy. This is a Matsys town.
Every one looks at his old iron well beside the Cathedral and recalls
the legend of the blacksmith, as every boy remembers here Hendrik
Conscience and the Lion of Flanders. Van Reymerswael's The Tax
Gatherers, sometimes called The Bankers or The Misers, hangs in the
museum; that realistic picture with the so highly individualised
heads, a favourite of the engravers, holds its own. Both the Boutses,
Albrecht and Dirck, are shown in their Holy Families, and both are
painters of ineffable grace and devotion.
Four Memlings of seductive beauty light the walls. One is a portrait
of Nicolò Spinelli. Christ and His Angels, the angels playing in
praise of the Eternal and other angels playing various instruments.
The two Van Eycks, Huibrecht (Hubert) and Jan, are well represented.
The St. Barbara, by Jan, is repeated in the Bruges Museum The Donateur
or Donor is a repetition of the original at Bruges. The Adoration of
the Lamb is a copy of the original at Ghent. There is tender beauty in
Jan's St. Barbara, and infinite motherly love expressed in his Holy
Virgin. Hugo van der Goes's portrait of Thomas Portunari is a marvel
of characterisation. Terburg has a mandolin player and Hobbema a mill
scene. The Van Orleys are interesting, and also the Van Veens. Gerard
David, a painter of exquisite touch and feeling, shows a Repose in
Egypt. Lucas Cranach's L'Amour is one of his Virgins transposed to the
mythological key. We have barely indicated the richness of this
collection, in which, of course, Rubens plays first fiddle--rather the
full orchestra. And with what sonority and luminosity!
At the Cathedral his three masterpieces draw their accustomed
audiences with the usual guide lecturing in three languages, pointing
out the whiteness of the cloth in the Descent and the anatomy in the
Ascent. This latter work is always slighted by sightseers because
Baedeker, or some one else, had pronounced its composition "inferior"
to the Descent, but there are many more difficult problems involved in
the Ascent. Its pattern is not so pleasing as the Descent, the subject
is less appealing, and more sternly treated. There are more virile
accents in the Ascent, though it would be idle to deny that in paint
quality there is a falling off. Both pictures show the tooth of time
and the ravages of the restorers. At St. Jacques, with its wonderfully
carved pulpit, the St. George of Rubens hangs in a chapel. It has
darkened much during the last twenty years. Also there is another
Rubens family group with wives and other relatives. They thought well
of themselves, the Rubens family, and little wonder.
The modern pictures at the museum are of varying interest--Braekeleer,
Stobbaerts, Verlat, Scheffer, Cabanel, David (J.L.), Wiertz, Wauters,
Wappers, some elegant Alfred Stevenses, De Bock the landscapist,
Clays, Van Beers, Meunier, Breton, Bouguereau, and a lot of
nondescript lumber. In the spacious approach there is one of
Constantin Meunier's famous figures. You rejoice that he followed
Rodin's advice and gave up the brush for the chisel. As a painter he
was not more than mediocre.
The four Van der Weydens in the gallery of Primitives are not all of
equal merit. The Annunciation is the most striking. The early master
of Memling is distinguished by a sweetness in composition and softness
in colouring. Mention must be made of the De Vos pictures by the
Cornelis, Martin, and Simon. A portrait of Abraham Grapheus by the
first-named is one of the most striking in the museum, and the
self-portrait of the latter, smiling, is brilliant. Rombouts is a sort
of Adrian Brouwer; his Cavaliers Playing at Cards recalls Caravaggio.
Daniel Mytens's portrait of a lady is Rubenesque.
And all that choir of elevated souls unknown to us by name, merely
called after the city they inhabited, such as the Master of Bray, or
by some odd device or monogram--what cannot be written of this small
army which praised the Lord, His mother and the saints in form and
colour, on missals, illuminated manuscripts, or on panels! The Antwerp
Museum has its share of Anonymous, that master of whom it has been
said that "he" was probably the master of the masters. Antwerp is a
city of many charms, with its St. Jacques, St. Andres (and its carved
pulpit), St. Paul and the Cathedral, and its preservation of the
Flemish spirit and Flemish customs; but for us its museum was all in
all.
MUSEUMS OF BRUSSELS
Considering its size and significance, Brussels has more than its
share of museums. At the beginning of the Rue de la Régence, near the
Place Royale, stands the imposing Royal Museum of old paintings and
sculpture. The Museum of Modern Art is around the corner and adjoins
the National Library, which is said to harbour over six hundred
thousand volumes. In the gallery of old art the effect of the
sculptors' hall, which is in the centre and utilises the entire height
of the building, is noble. The best sculpture therein is by Rodin and
Meunier; the remainder is generally academic or simply bad. Rodin's
Thinker, in bronze, is a repetition of the original. After the
wreathed prettiness of the conventional school--neither Greek nor
Gothic--and the writhing diablerie of Rodin imitators the simplicity
and directness of Constantin Meunier is refreshing. He was a man whose
imagination became inflamed at the sight of suffering and injustice.
He is closer to Millet than to his friend Rodin, but he lacks the
sweetness and strength of Millet. Selecting the Belgian workman--the
miner, the hewer of wood and drawer of water, the proletarian, in a
word--for his theme, Meunier observed closely and reproduced his
vision in terms of rugged beauty. The sentiment is evidently
socialistic. Like Prince Kropotkin and the brothers Réclus, the
Belgian sculptor revolts against the cruelty of man to man. He shows
us the miner crouched in a pitiful manner finding a pocket of coal;
men naked to the waist, their torsos bulging with muscles, their small
heads on bull necks, are puddlers; other groups patiently haul heavy
carts--labour not in its heroic aspect, but as it is in reality, is
the core of Meunier's art. That he is "literary" at times may not be
denied, but power he has.
The early Flemish school of the fifteenth century is strongly
represented in several of the galleries up-stairs. And Rogier de la
Pasture, otherwise known as Rogier van der Weyden, is shown in five
pictures, and at his best. The Chevalier with the Arrow, a bust
portrait, will be familiar to those who have visited the Rijks Museum,
where a copy hangs. The robe is black, the hat, conical, is brown, the
background blue-green. The silhouette is vigorously modelled, the
expression one of dignity, the glance penetrating, severe. What
characterisation! The Christ is a small panel surpassingly rich in
colour and charged with profound pity. The body lies in the arms of
the Mother, Magdalen and John on either side. The sun is setting. The
subject was a favourite of Weyden; there is a triptych in Berlin and a
panel at The Hague. This Brussels picture has evidently been shorn of
its wings. There are replicas of the Virgin and Child (No. 650 in the
catalogue) at Berlin, Cassel, and Frankfort, also in the recently
dispersed collection of Rudolph Kann. Another striking tableau is the
head of a woman who weeps. The minutest tear is not missing.
Hubert and Jan Van Eyck's Adam and Eve are the wings (volets) from the
grand composition in the Cathedral of St. Bavo, Ghent. They are
gigantic figures, nude, neither graceful nor attractive, but
magnificently painted. These portraits (they don't look as if they had
been finished in paradise) of our first parents rather favour the
evolutionary theory of development. Eve is unlovely, her limbs lanky,
her bust mediæval, her flanks Flemish. In her right hand she holds the
fatal apple. Adam's head is full of character; it is Christ-like; his
torso ugly, his legs wooden. Yet how superior to the copies which are
now attached to the original picture at Ghent. There the figures are
clothed, clumsy, and meaningless.
Dierick Bouts's Justice of Emperor Otho III is a striking picture. The
subject has that touch of repulsive cruelty which was a sign of the
times. Hans Memling's Martyrdom of St. Sebastian is another treasure;
with his portraits of a man, of Guillaume Morel and of Barbara de
Vlandenberg making an immortal quartet. The head of the man is the
favourite in reproduction. Morel is portrayed as in prayer, his hands
clasped, his expression rapt. A landscape is seen at the back. The
Virgin Surrounded by Virgins, by an unknown master of the fifteenth
century (school of Bruges), is one of the most amazing pictures in the
collection. It has a nuance of the Byzantine and of the hieratic, but
the portraits are enchanting in their crystalline quality. Quentin
Matsys' Legend of St. Anne is much admired, though for sincerity we
prefer The Passion of the Master of Oultremont. Gerard David's
Adoration of the Magi is no longer attributed to him. It was always in
doubt: now the name has been removed, though the picture has much of
his mellowness. Dr. Scheuring, the old man with the shaved upper lip,
beard, and hair over his forehead, by Lucas Cranach, and Jean
Gossaert's Chevalier of the Golden Fleece, are masterly portraits. Van
Cleve, Van Orlay, Key--perhaps a portrait of the bloody Duke of
Alva--also one of himself, Coello's Maria of Austria, are among the
sterling specimens in this gallery.
We need not expect to find duplicated here the Rubens of Antwerp. The
most imposing example is the Adoration of the Magi, while his
portraits of the Archduke Albert and his Archduchess, Isabella, are
perhaps the best extant. The Calvary is a splendid canvas, full of
movement and containing several members of the well-known Rubens
family. Such devotion is touching. You find yourself looking for
Isabella Brandt and Helena Fourment among the angels that hover in the
sky above the martyred St. Lieven. The four negro heads, the Woman
Taken in Adultery, a Susanna (less concerned about her predicament
than any we have encountered), a curious and powerful portrait of
Theophrastus Paracelsus (Browning's hero), with a dozen others, make a
goodly showing for the Antwerp master. Otho Vænius (Octave Van Veen),
one of the teachers of Rubens, is hung here. There are nearly a dozen
Van Dycks, of prime quality all. The Crucifixion, the portrait of an
unknown gentleman wearing a huge ruff and the winning portrait of a
Flemish sculptor, Francesco Duquesnoy, (on a stand), give you an
excellent notion of his range, though better Van Dycks are in France
and England.
The portrait of an old man, by Rembrandt, is beginning to fade, but
that of an old woman is a superior Rembrandt. Of Frans Hals there are
two fine specimens; one, a portrait of Willem van Heythusen, is a
small picture, the figure sitting, the legs crossed (booted and
spurred) and the figure leaning lazily back. On his head a black felt
hat with a broad upturned brim. The expression of the bearded man is
serious. The only Jan Vermeer is one of the best portraits by that
singularly gifted painter we recall. It is called The Man with the
Hat. Dr. Bredius in 1905 considered the picture by Jean Victor, but it
has been pronounced Vermeer by equal authorities. It was once a part
of the collection of Humphry Ward. The man sits, his hand holding a
glove resting negligently over the back of a chair. He faces the
spectator, on his head a long, pointed black hat with a wide brim. His
collar is white. A shadow covers the face above the eyes. These are
rather melancholy, inexpressive; the flesh tints are anaemic, almost
morbid. We are far away from the Vermeer of the Milkmaid and the
Letter. There is something disquieting in this portrait, but it is a
masterpiece of paint and character.
The Old Lady Dreaming, by N. Maes, and the Jan Steen (The Operator)
are good though not remarkable examples. Jacob Jordaenses flood the
various galleries; Rubens run to seed as far as quality, yet
exhibiting enormous muscularity, is the trait of this gross painter.
The King Drinks--his kings are always drinking or blind drunk--his
nudes, which look like the contents of the butcher shops in Brussels,
attract throngs, for the anecdote is writ large across the wall, and
you don't have to run to read. Panoramas would be a better title for
these robust compositions. David Teniers's La Kermesse is the most
important work he ever finished. It is in good preservation. Amsterdam
has not its superior. There is an ordinary El Greco, a poor Goya, and
a Ribera downstairs. The French art is not enlivening.
Philip Champaigne's self-portrait is familiar: it has been reproduced
frequently. Jean Baptiste Huysmans, a landscape with animals; he is
said to be an ancestor of the late Joris Karel Huysmans. The Mors
(Antonio Moro) is of value. But the lodestone of the collection is the
Primitives.
The pictures in the modern gallery are largely Belgian, some French,
and a few Dutch and English. It is not a collection of artistic
significance. In the black-and-white room may be seen a few original
drawings of Rops.
The Musée Wiertz is worth visiting only as a chamber of horrors. When
Wiertz is not morbid and repulsive he is of the vasty inane, a man of
genius gone daft, obsessed by the mighty shades of Rubens and Michael
Angelo. Wiertz was born in 1806 and died in 1865. The Belgian
Government, in order to make some sort of reparation for its neglect
of the painter during his troubled and unhappy lifetime, acquired his
country residence and made it a repository of his art. The pictures
are of a scale truly heroic. The painter pitted himself against Rubens
and Michael Angelo. He said: "I, too, am a great painter!" And there
is no denying his power. His tones recall the _pâte_ of Rubens without
its warmth and splendour. When Wiertz was content to keep within
bounds his portraits and feminine nudes are not without beauty. He was
fanciful rather than poetic, and the picture of Napoleon in hell
enduring the reproaches of his victims (why should they be there?) is
startling. Startling, too, are the tricks played on your nerves by the
peepholes. You see a woman crazed by hunger about to cook one of her
murdered children; beheaded men, men crushed by superior power, the
harnessed body of Patroclus, Polyphemus devouring the companions of
Ulysses, and other monstrous conceptions, are all painted with
reference to the ills of the poor. Anton Joseph was a socialist in
sentiment. If his executive ability had been on a par with his ideas,
and if those ideas had been less extravagant, the world would have had
one more great painter; but his nervous system was flawed and he died
a melancholic, a victim to misplaced ideals. He wished to revive the
heroic age at a time of easel pictures. He, the half genius, saw
himself outwitted by the sleek paint of Alfred Stevens. Born out of
his due time, a dreamer of dreams, Wiertz is a sad example of the
futility of looking backward in art.
BRUGES THE BEAUTIFUL
On the way up from Brussels to Bruges it is well to alight at Ghent
for a few hours. There are attractions enough to keep one for several
days, but as our objective was St. Bavon (St. Bavo, or Sint Baafs) we
did not stay more than the allotted time. And an adventurous time it
was. The Ostend express landed its passengers at the St. Pierre
station and that meant the loss of half an hour. The Cathedral is
reached by the tramway, and there we found that as an office was about
to be sung no one would be allowed in the ambulatory until after its
completion. It was pouring live Belgian rain without; already the
choristers in surplices were filing into the choir. Not a moment to be
spared! The sacristan was a practical man. He hustled us into a side
chapel, locked the heavy doors, and left us in company with the great
picture of the brothers Hubert and Jan Van Eyck. A monk knelt in
prayer outside, the rain clouds made the lighting obscure. We were
hemmed in, but by angels and ministers of grace. The chanting began.
Atmosphere was not needed in this large and gloomy edifice, only more
light. Gradually the picture began to burn through the artificial
dusk, gradually its glories became more perceptible. Begun by Hubert
in 1420 and finished by Jan in 1432, its pristine splendour has
vanished; and the loss of the wings--the Adam and Eve are in Brussels,
the remaining volets in the Berlin Museum--is irreparable despite the
copies. But this Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, with its jewelled
figures of the Christ, of St. John the Baptist, St. Cecilia, and the
central panel with its mystical symbolism, painted in sumptuous tones,
the lamb on the altar, the prophets and ecclesiastics in worship, the
singing angels, is truly an angelic composition.
The rain had ceased. A shaft of sunshine pierced the rosy glass
windows and fell upon the hieratic figure of the bearded Christ, which
glowed supernally. In the chancel the Psalms had died away and the
only sound was that of sandals shuffling over marble floors. The man
turned the lock. It was a return to the world as if one had
participated in a sacred ceremony.
Bruges is invariably called Bruges-la-Morte, but it is far from being
dead, or even desperately melancholy. Delft, in Holland, after nine
o'clock at night, is quieter than Bruges. Bruges the Dead? No, Bruges
the Beautiful is nearer the truth. After reading Rodenbach's morbid
romance of Bruges-la-Morte we felt sure that a stay in Bruges would be
like a holiday in a cemetery. Our experience dispelled this unpleasant
illusion. Bruges is in daylight a bustling and in certain spots a
noisy place. Its inhabitants are not lugubrious of visage, but
wideawake, practical people, close at a bargain, curious like all
Belgians, and on fête days given to much feasting. Bruges is
infinitely more interesting than Brussels. It is real, while modern
Brussels is only mock-turtle. And Bruges is more picturesque, the food
is as well flavoured, there are several resorts where ripe old
Burgundy may be had at not an extravagant price, and the townsfolk are
less grasping, more hearty than in Brussels.
The city is nicknamed a Northern Venice, but of Venice there is
naught, except the scum on the canal waters. The secular odour of
Bruges was not unpleasant in October; in August it may have been. We
know that the glory of the city hath departed, but there remain the
Memlings, the Gerard Davids, at least one Van Eyck, not to mention
several magnificent old churches.
Let us stroll to the Béguinage. Reproductions of Memling and Van Eyck
are in almost every window. The cafés on the square, where stands the
Belfry of Longfellow's poem, are overflowing with people at table. It
is Friday, and to-morrow will be market day; with perhaps a fair or a
procession thrown in. You reach the Cathedral of St. Sauveur (Sint
Salvator), erected in the tenth century, though the foundations date
back to the seventh. The narrow lane-like street winds around the rear
of the church. Presently another church is discerned with a tower that
must be nearly four hundred feet high, built, you learn, some time
between the tenth and fourteenth centuries. Notre Dame contains the
tombs of Charles the Bold and Mary of Burgundy, a lovely white marble
statue of the Virgin and Child ascribed with justice to Michael
Angelo, and a fine bow-window. We pass the Hospital of St. Jean, turn
up an alley full of cobblestones and children, and finally see the
canal that passes the houses of the Béguinage. The view is of
exceeding charm. The spire of Notre Dame and the apsis may be seen up
(or is it down?) stream. A bridge cuts the river precisely where it
should; weeping willows to the left lend an elegiac note to the
ensemble, and there is a gabled house to the right which seems to have
entered the scene so as to give an artist the exact balance for his
composition. Nature and the handicraft of man paint pictures all over
Bruges.
We enter the enclosure with the little houses of the béguines, or lay
sisterhood. There is nothing particular to see, except a man under a
tree admiring his daubed canvas, near by a dog sleeps. The sense of
peace is profound. Even Antwerp seems a creation of yesterday compared
with the brooding calm of Bruges, while Brussels is as noisy as a
boiler shop. The Minnewater (Lac d'Amour) is another pretty stretch,
and so we spent the entire day through shy alleys, down crooked
streets, twisting every few feet and forming deceptive vistas
innumerable, leading tired legs into churches, out of museums, up
tower steps.
That first hard stroll told us how little we could know of Bruges in a
day, a week or a month. Bag and baggage we moved up from Brussels and
wished that the clock and the calendar could be set back several
centuries. At twilight the unusual happened: the Sandman appeared with
his hour-glass and beckoned to bed. There is no night in Bruges for
the visitor within the gates; there is only slumber. Perhaps that is
why the cockneys call it Bruges the Dead. The old horse that drags the
hotel bus was stamping its hoofs in the court-yard; the wall of St.
Jacques, eaten away by the years, faced us. The sun, somewhere, was
trying to rub its sleepy eyes, the odour of omelet was in the air, and
all was well. This is the home-like side of its life. It may still
harbour artists who lead a mystic, ecstatic existence, but we met none
of them. Poetic images are aroused at dusk along the banks of canals,
bathed in spectral light. Here Georges Rodenbach, that poet of
delicate images, placed his hero, a man who had lost a beloved wife.
He saw her wraith-like form in the mist and at the end went mad.
The Memlings hang in a chamber at the Hospital St. Jean; the Châsse of
St. Ursula is a reliquary, Gothic in design. They consist of a dozen
tiny panels painted in exquisite fashion, with all the bright clarity
and precision of a miniaturist, coupled with a solidity of form and
lyric elegance of expression. They represent the side of Memling's art
which might be compared to the illuminators of manuscripts or to the
artificers in gold and precious stones. There is a jewelled quality in
this illustration of the pious life and martyrdom of St. Ursula at
Cologne. But it is not the greatest Memling, to our thinking. A
portrait of Martin van Nieuwenhoven, the donator of the diptych, La
Vierge aux Pommes, is as superb a Memling as one could wish for. The
little hairs are a sign of clever, minute brush. It is the modelling,
the rich manipulation of tones (yes, values were known in those
barbarous times), the graceful fall of the hair treated quite as much
en masse as with microscopic finish; the almost miraculous painting of
the folded hands, and the general expression of pious reverie, that
count most. The ductile, glowing colours make this a portrait to be
compared to any of the master's we have studied at London, Berlin,
Dresden, Lübeck, Paris, Amsterdam, and Brussels. But Bruges is the
natural frame for his exalted genius.
If the Van Eycks were really the first to use oil-colour--a fable, it
is said--Memling, who followed them, taught many great Italian
painters the quality and expressiveness of beautiful paint. There is
the portrait of Sybilla Sambetha, the serious girl with the lace veil.
Did any of the later Dutch conjurers in paint attain such
transparency? The Mystic Marriage of St. Catharine, a triptych with
its wings representing the beheading of St. John the Baptist--the
Salome is quite melancholy--and St. John at Patmos, is one of the
world pictures. The Adoration of the Magi, with its wings, The
Nativity, and Presentation in the Temple, is equally touching. For me
Memling's Descent from the Cross sounds deeper music than
Rubens--which is operatic in comparison. The Virgin type of Van Eyck
is less insipid than the Italian; there is no pagan dissonance, as in
the conception of Botticelli. Faith blazed more fiercely in the
breasts of these Primitive artists. They felt Christ's Passion and the
sorrow of the Holy Mother more poignantly than did the Italians of the
golden renaissance. We have always held a brief for the Art for Art
theory. The artist must think first of his material and its technical
manipulation; but after that, if his pulse beat to spiritual rhythms
then his work may attain the heights. It is not painting that is the
lost art, but faith. Men like the Van Eycks, Rogier van der Weyden,
Memling, and Gerard David were princes of their craft and saw their
religion with eyes undimmed by doubt.