underneath Christian ideas, such, indeed, is the two-fold nature of
art under Hubert and Jan van Eyck, Roger van der Weyden, Memling,
and Quentin Massys; and from these two characteristics proceed all
the others. On the one hand, artists take interest in actual life;
their figures are no longer symbols like the illuminations of ancient
missals, nor purified spirits like the Madonnas of the School of
Cologne but living beings and bodies. They attend to no anatomy, the
perspective is exact, the minutest details are rendered regarding
stuffs, architecture, accessories, and landscape; the relief is strong
and the entire scene stamps itself on the eye and on the mind with
extraordinary force and sense of stability; the greatest masters of
coming times are not to surpass them in all this, nor even go so far.
Nature is now discovered. The scales fall from their eyes; they have
just mastered almost in a flash, the proportions, the structure, and
the coloring of visible realities; and, moreover, they delight in them.
Consider the superb copes wrought in gold and bedecked with diamonds,
the embroidered silks, the flowered and dazzling diadems with which
they ornament their saints and divine personages, all of whom represent
the pomp of the Burgundian Court. Look at the calm and transparent
water, the bright meadows, the red and white flowers, the blossoming
trees and the sunny distances of their admirable landscapes. Observe
their coloring--the strongest and richest ever seen, the pure and full
tones side by side as in a Persian carpet and united solely through
their harmony, the superb breaks in the folds of purple mantles, the
deep azure of long, falling robes, the green draperies like a summer
field permeated with sunshine, the display of gold skirts trimmed with
black, the strong light which warms and enlivens the whole scene--and
you have a concert in which each instrument sounds its proper note.
They see the world on the bright side and make a holiday of it, a
genuine _fête_, similar to those of this day, glowing under a
more bounteous sunlight and not a heavenly Jerusalem suffused with
supernatural radiance such as Fra Angelico painted. They are Flemings
and they stick to the earth.”
Contemporary with Memling is Hugo Van der Goes (1430–1482), one of
the last important figures in the Van Eyck School, more celebrated
in his day than in ours, but powerful and austere, and painter of an
altar-piece in 1476 for Tommaso Portinari, which was placed in the
Church of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence and was greatly admired by
Ghirlandaio and Piero di Cosimo. With Gerard David (1450–1523), a
follower of Memling and Massys, we leave the Flemish Primitives for a
world of newer ideas.
Quentin Massys (1460–1530), creator of the Antwerp School, belongs to
an intermediate epoch. He is herald of the Italianiate Flemings--Jan
Mabuse, Bernard van Orley, Lambert Lombard, Jan Mostært, Bellegambe,
Launcelot Blondeel, and others--all of whom, dazzled by the
Renaissance, tried to combine their Flemish coldness with Italian
grace. Some of them lived to see the triumph of Rubens and the rise of
another School.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), is the recognized head of the Flemish
School of Painting. His power was felt throughout Europe and he had
more influence on taste in the Seventeenth Century than any other
artist. Rubens painted more than two thousand pictures and made nearly
five hundred drawings. In every style he proved himself a great master
(see page 176).
Anthony Van Dyck (1599–1641) studied under Hendrik van Balen and then
became assistant to and pupil of Rubens. After a long stay in Italy
he returned to Antwerp and thence settled in England where he became
Court-Painter to Charles I. In his short life he painted nearly a
thousand pictures and acquired such proficiency in portraiture that he
is ranked among the greatest in this line (see page 181).
The important Brueghel (or Breughel) family affords an example of
heredity in painting and how in the course of generations there was
transition from the old to the new art. Pieter (Peasant) Brueghel
(1530–16--?) received lessons from Van Orley and Jerome Cœck, but his
real master was the long dead Jerome Bosch, whose fantastic works
fascinated him. Brueghel went to Italy and was delighted with the
Alpine scenery; but, on his return he tried to preserve the Flemish
ideas that were fast dying under the Italian cult. He persisted in
portraying the familiar scenes of his boyhood and familiar humorous
situations. Therefore, he received the sobriquets of “Peasant
Brueghel” and “Droll Brueghel.” His two sons were equally famous.
Jan or “Velvet Brueghel” (1568–1625), so-called from his fondness for
wearing velvet, was famous for his flowers; and he frequently painted
garlands in the pictures of Rubens. Pieter Brueghel (1574–1637),
so loved painting infernal scenes that he was nicknamed “Hell-fire
Brueghel.” Their sons continued their names and professions until the
close of the Seventeenth Century.
Pieter Pourbus (1510–1584) and his son Frans (1540–1580) are among the
best portrait-painters of the Sixteenth Century.
Frans Snyders (1579–1657) studied under Peter Brueghel and Hendrik van
Balen, became the friend and associate of Rubens, and a brilliant and
unsurpassed painter of fruits and animals.
Jacob Jordaens (1593–1678), born in Antwerp, son of a cloth merchant,
depicted scenes from domestic life and popular festivities. He
was astonishingly able to render mirth and jollity. Jordaens is
distinguished for his unrestrained and boisterous humor and he often
repeated his somewhat crazy home-concert, “As the old ones sing, so
will the young ones twitter.” Jordaens sometimes collaborated with
Frans Snyders, Jan Fyt, Adriaen van Utrecht, and others. Jordaens was
entirely Flemish, absolutely unaffected by the foreign influences that
charmed Rubens and Van Dyck.
David Teniers the Younger (1610–1690) is the greatest _genre_
painter of the southern Netherlands. Teniers is one of those Flemish
painters who were sought after in Holland during their lifetime.
This may have arisen from the fact that he was closely allied with
the Dutch School and with Brouwer who lived and worked in Antwerp.
Teniers was an indefatigable painter and left more than eight hundred
pictures,--inn-interiors, _kermesses_, hawking-parties, drinkers,
bagpipe-players and other musicians, “conversations,” bowling-games,
kitchens, _Temptations of St. Anthony_, and monkey-scenes. Sir Joshua
Reynolds admired him and said: “The works of David Teniers, jun., are
worthy of the closest attention of a painter who desires to excel
in the mechanical knowledge of his art. His manner of touching, or
what we call handling, has perhaps never been equalled: there is in
his pictures that exact mixture of softness and sharpness which is
difficult to execute.”
One of the best artists of the second period of the Antwerp School
is Gonzales Coques (1614–1684), a painter of interiors of elegance,
wealth, gaiety, and happy serenity, and also portraits. His distinction
he borrows from Van Dyck and his color is inspired by Rubens. However,
in the dimensions of his pictures and their minuteness of detail and
finish, Coques is reminiscent of the Dutch School,--particularly
Terborch and Metsu.
In the Eighteenth Century there is little painting to claim attention.
Charles Blanc has put the matter most succinctly:
“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. Here and there an artist appears to remind us
what Flanders was in color and decoration for two centuries. France
was triumphing in spirit and grace; Italy, though decadent, was still
ingenious and smiling; England at last was producing original masters;
_but Flanders was asleep_.”
PORTRAIT OF A LADY.
_Roger van der Weyden
(1400?–1464)._
_Collection of the
Hon. Andrew W. Mellon._
This very striking portrait, an oil painting on panel (14⅜ × 10⅝), came
from the Collection of the Duke of Anhalt, Ducal Castle of Dessau, and
was previously in the Gothic Palace, Wörlitz, Germany.
[Illustration:
_Collection of the Hon. Andrew W. Mellon_
PORTRAIT OF A LADY
--_Roger van der Weyden_]
The subject is a Flemish lady of high birth. She is not beautiful,
but she has an air of great distinction. Her half-figure is turned
three-quarters to the left and dressed in a dark robe with a
turned-over collar, opening at the throat, where a transparent piece of
soft, white muslin is arranged into a V-shape, and over this hangs a
fine gold chain. A crimson girdle fastened with a gold clasp encircles
her waist. The hair is brushed back from the forehead, or rather the
forehead is rendered bald by the fashionable style of plucking out
the hair, and covered by a close-fitting cap, composed of interlaced
bands edged with a black ribbon, holding in place a thin veil; and over
this a transparent white “wimple” is pinned to the cap, passing over
the forehead and fastened at the back where it spreads in a wing on
either shoulder. The right hand is placed over the left, presumably
resting on a parapet, and a simple gold ring is on a finger of each
hand.
Dr. Max Friedländer writes in _Meisterwerke der Niederländischen
Malerei des XV u. XVI Jahrhunderts auf der Ausstellung zu Brügge_
(1902):
“This simple, proud, and very well preserved portrait, which has up
to the present time not received a great deal of attention, in my
estimation appears to be characteristic of Roger van der Weyden, in
the severe and somewhat Moorish outline of the face, in the economic
modelling of the shadows, and in the drawing of the lean hands. Similar
women’s portraits are in the National Gallery, London, and in Adolphe
de Rothschild’s Collection (from the Nieuwenhuij’s Sale).
Roger van der Weyden, or Rogier de la Pasture, the son of Henri de
la Pasture, was born in 1400 in Tournai, where the family had been
settled since 1260. His father was a sculptor and gave Roger his first
training. Next he was apprenticed to the Maître de Flêmalle (Robert
Campin) and later went to Brussels to live. Here he quickly gained a
great reputation, for in 1436 he was appointed painter to the city
of Brussels. While busy on his great _Last Judgment_, commissioned
by Nicholas Rolin for the Hospital at Beaune (a polyptych, which has
been classed with the Van Eyck _Adoration of the Lamb_), Roger went on
a long trip to Italy. Visiting Rome, he greatly admired the frescoes
begun by Gentile da Fabriano in St. John Lateran. He also went to
Florence, Ferrara, and, it is supposed, Venice. Roger painted a good
deal in Italy and even had orders. Among other things he painted a
_Madonna and Child_ for Cosimo de’ Medici.
Roger returned home, it is thought, by way of Cologne. While on this
trip, Roger was commissioned by Leonello d’Este to paint a picture.
Roger van der Weyden left as much in Italy as he brought home. His
influence is seen in many of the contemporary Italians. In like manner,
the influence of the Italians appears in the pictures that Roger van
der Weyden painted on his return. German artists, too, fell under the
spell of Roger van der Weyden, particularly Martin Schöngauer, the
greatest German painter of the Fifteenth Century.
Roger van der Weyden was extremely versatile: he produced paintings in
oil and painted miniatures, designed cartoons for tapestry-weavers, and
made wood-engravings.
Fierens-Gevaert, the greatest authority on Flemish Primitives, says of
Roger van der Weyden:
“His figures, among which males predominate, both in number and
interest, do not all possess the impassibility sometimes attributed to
them. Their beauty, or their moral significance, is merely restrained,
just like the artist’s own emotions. Both need to be discovered. As for
the expression of the color, the novel truth of the light, the profound
feeling of the landscape--these are the incontestable merits in the
Louvain painter. They explain his profound influence upon Memling,
Gerard David, Quentin Massys, the Master of the Death of Mary, his
_prestige_ with the Sixteenth Century Renaissants, and the growing
admiration of modern criticism for his genius.”
Roger van der Weyden died in Brussels, June 16, 1464, leaving many
pupils and followers, the most noteworthy of whom was Hans Memling.
PORTRAIT OF A CARTHUSIAN MONK AS A SAINT.
_Petrus Christus
(1410?–1473)._
_Collection of
Mr. Jules S. Bache._
This interesting panel (8½ × 11⅝ inches) came to America by way of
Spain, having been in the Collections of Don Ramon de Oms, Majorca, and
the Marquis de Dos Aguas, Valencia.
The picture is signed and dated 1446 at the base of the portrait,
below a ledge, on which an insect is slowly walking. The identity of
the subject and the reason for the presence of the fly, or grasshopper
(or whatever it is), are equally unknown. However, we have here a
marvellous human document, which grows more amazing the longer it is
studied. The portrait preserves the personality and features of a
strong, kindly, and interesting man, who must have been beloved and
honored, or he would not have been represented with a golden ring
around his head, proclaiming him a saint.
And the painter has done more than this: he has thrown such atmosphere
around the man that the interesting life in the old abbeys seems to
rise before us. We see the picturesque buildings set in emerald swards
and shaded by leafy trees, and surrounded by cloisters where the monks
take exercise, or read in some traceried recess; and we peer into
the halls where the artistic members of the community are writing,
composing music, copying, or painting and illuminating beautiful
miniatures in manuscripts, destined--although undreamed of by these
painters and gold-leaf workers--to bring thousands of dollars at
auction-sales five hundred years in the future and to be prized as
treasures in a then undiscovered country across the Atlantic Ocean,
whose waters were thought by those very monks to break upon the shores
of Far Cathay!
Our _Carthusian Monk_, in his white cassock, carries us into the
Chapel, where we see him and others of his Order in prayer at midnight,
at early dawn, or at the vesper hour; and again with him we stroll
to the near-by river in the golden sunlight of the afternoon and sit
under the soft willows, dangling a line from a long fishing-pole until
we have a sufficient catch for supper. On our return to the abbey we
notice how heartily our _Carthusian Monk_ welcomes a group of
arriving travellers--for the abbeys were the hostelries in the Middle
Ages--and we join them at supper in the refectory. Doubtless, too, our
Carthusian gives us a _petit verre_ of golden Chartreuse of his
own making.
While the rules in the ancient abbeys were rigid and inflexible and
religion, of course, the chief business, it was in these secluded
places that art and learning were preserved and fostered. The world
to-day is apt to forget what civilization owes to the Mediæval Abbey,
and Petrus Christus has brought this _Carthusian Monk_ to tell us
something of what that is.
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. Jules S. Bache_
PORTRAIT OF A CARTHUSIAN MONK AS A SAINT
--_Petrus Christus_]
Petrus Christus was born at Baerle, on the southern border of Holland,
in 1410 (it is thought). In 1444 he became a free citizen of Bruges
and, as he was a follower and probably a pupil of Jan van Eyck and
Roger van der Weyden, he is classed as belonging to the School of
Bruges. Petrus Christus painted religious pictures and portraits and
is regarded as one of the direct ancestors of _genre_ painting.
He died in 1473. Of late years his pictures have come into special
prominence.
MADONNA AND CHILD WITH ANGELS.
_Hans Memling
(1430–5–1494)._
_Collection of the
Hon. Andrew W. Mellon._
This painting, an oil on panel (23 × 19 inches), came from the
Collection of the Duke of Anhalt, Gothic Palace, Wörlitz, near Dessau,
Germany.
The Virgin in a blue robe and red mantle is seated on a canopied
throne, behind which is an embroidered hanging. Her eyes are looking
downward upon a missal which she holds in her left hand. On her right
knee, and supported by her right arm, is seated the Holy Child, who
reaches out for an apple, offered to Him by a kneeling Angel. This
Angel holds in his left hand a viol and bow. At the right, another
kneeling Angel is playing a harp. The scene is framed in a Gothic arch,
flanked on either side by a circular column, each column supporting a
single male figure in a sculptured niche: on the right, St. Simon the
Apostle is holding a saw, and on the left, the Prophet David is holding
a harp. On each spandrel of the arch a cherub is holding a globe.
Beyond this again, on either side of the throne, we see a landscape
with a castle on the left and a church and river on the right. In the
foreground there is a tessellated floor covered with an Oriental rug.
This idea of angels playing instruments[21] Memling may have learned
from Italy.
[Illustration:
_Collection of the Hon. Andrew W. Mellon_
MADONNA AND CHILD WITH ANGELS
--_Hans Memling_]
Hans Memling (or Memlinc), was born in 1430 or 1435, supposedly in
Memelynck (whence his name) near Alkmaar in Holland. Tradition says
that his family removed to the diocese of Mainz when he was fifteen.
Memling seems to have painted in Cologne before he went to Bruges about
1465, where it is thought he was a pupil of Roger van der Weyden. It
is certain that he was a master painter in Bruges in 1467. In 1479 he
painted his masterpiece, _The Marriage of St. Catherine_, ordered by
Jan Floreins for the St. John’s Hospital, Bruges, and also a smaller
triptych, _The Adoration of the Magi_, for the same building. Another
great work was the _Shrine of St. Ursula_, ordered by the Hospital
in 1480 to enclose some relics of St. Ursula brought from the Holy
Land,--a miniature Gothic chapel adorned with finials, statuettes, and
medallions representing episodes in the life of St. Ursula. Memling
died in 1494 in Bruges, which contains to-day a great number of his
works.
Memling, in common with the Van Eycks and Roger van der Weyden was
fond of enamelling his grassy swards, where the people sit or walk,
with beautifully painted flowers; such as the daisy, the anemone, and
the iris. Hans Memling is the most attractive of all the painters
of the Netherlandish School, the most human, the most poetic, most
graceful and the tenderest, merging, as did Fra Angelico (1387–1455),
his contemporary, from Mediæval to Renaissance. Indeed Hans Memling is
often called the “Flemish Fra Angelico.”
PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN.
_Hans Memling
(1430–1494)._
_Collection of
Mrs. John N. Willys._
Here we have the portrait of a young gentleman nearly full face, and
clad in a black doublet which is open at the neck showing a white linen
shirt with a narrow black circular band around the top. On his head is
a circular black felt cap with narrow brim. The dense masses of his
brownish red hair fall over his shoulders and completely cover his
forehead to the top of his eyebrows. He has blue eyes and an intensely
thoughtful and serious expression, and he holds in his left hand a
scroll of paper, which might seem to indicate that he is a poet. The
background consists of a woody landscape, and on the left is a river
with two swans.
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mrs. John N. Willys_
PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN
--_Hans Memling_]
Dr. Max J. Friedländer, of Berlin, after examining the picture wrote to
the present owner: “I was greatly interested in the Memling portrait
from the Taylor Collection which I saw at your place. It is positively
a characteristic work of the hand of the Master.”
This picture painted on panel (13½ × 9 inches) came from the John
Edward Taylor Collection, London, in 1912.
LOUIS XIII KING OF FRANCE.
_Peter Paul Rubens
(1577–1640)._
_Collection of
Sir Joseph Duveen, Bart._
This interesting oil painting on canvas (46½ × 38 inches) came from
the Collection of the Emperor of Germany, Palace of Charlottenburg
near Berlin, and was originally in the Collection of the Archduke
Leopold William of Austria at the Ducal Palace, Brussels. It was
painted between 1622 and 1625, and is supposed to be a companion to the
portrait of _Anne of Austria_ (now in the Prado).
Louis XIII is represented about the age of twenty-five, life-size,
and three-quarter length, looking at the observer from a background
of sky, portico, and red drapery. He has a slight moustache and his
hair is curled and falls down to the fine lace ruff around his neck.
He is dressed in a polished steel suit of armor and rests his left
hand, wearing a gauntlet, on a table covered by a cloth. A marshal’s
_bâton_ is in his right hand. The Cross of the Order of the Holy
Spirit hangs from a ribbon at his right side and on his left hangs a
sword from a belt. Over his shoulder is thrown a bright blue velvet and
ermine mantle embroidered with _fleur-de-lys_ and on the table is
seen his helmet surmounted by rich plumes of ostrich feathers.
[Illustration:
_Collection of Sir Joseph Duveen, Bart._
LOUIS XIII, KING OF FRANCE
--_Peter Paul Rubens_]
Louis XIII, son of Henri IV and his second wife, Marie de’ Medici,
was born in 1601 and became king at the age of nine, on his father’s
assassination in 1610. Marie de’ Medici, then becoming Regent,
determined to bring France into close relation with the House of
Austria and Spain, and, consequently, brought about the marriage of her
son in 1615 with Anne of Austria, daughter of the Spanish King, Philip
III.
Louis does not seem to have inherited any of the talents of the Medici
family, nor any of the dashing charm of his father, the gallant “King
Henry of Navarre.” He acquiesced for a time in his mother’s government
and in the rule of her favorites, among whom the Marshall d’Ancre was
notable; but in 1617 he had the latter assassinated with the help of
Charles d’Albert, Sieur de Luynes. This caused a breach between him and
his mother and their relations continued hostile until death.
In 1624 Cardinal Richelieu, who had been Marie de’ Medici’s chief
adviser, entered into the King’s council, and, thereafter, Richelieu
directed the policy of France and controlled Louis XIII. Many conflicts
resulted between the Protestants and the nobles of France; and Louis
was made the enemy of his mother, Gaston d’Orléans (his brother) and,
frequently, of his wife, Anne of Austria. On one occasion the Queen
Mother and Gaston d’Orléans gained influence over Louis and he was
about to dismiss Richelieu; but the Cardinal regained his power and
immediately punished his enemies. The Queen Mother was forced to flee
to Brussels and Gaston d’Orléans to Lorraine. Towards the end of his
reign Louis is quoted as having said to Richelieu: “We have lived
together too long to be separated.”
Cardinal Richelieu died in December, 1642, and Louis died a few months
later, in May, 1643.
Peter Paul Rubens was born in Siegen, Westphalia, in 1577, and received
his first education in the Jesuit College in Antwerp, and, for a few
years, thereafter, was page to a noble lady. At the age of thirteen he
began to study painting under Tobias Verhaagt, whom he left to study
under Adam van Noort. Next he worked under Otto van Veen. In 1600
he went to Italy, entering the service of Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of
Mantua, with whom he remained for eight years, interrupted by missions
to various courts. In 1603 he visited Madrid and went to Venice, Rome,
and Genoa. In 1609, on the death of the Duke of Mantua, Rubens returned
to Antwerp and became Court-Painter to Albert and Isabella, Regents of
the Netherlands. In that year also Rubens married Isabella Brandt. His
studio at Antwerp now became famous and attracted students from every
town in Europe.
He had barely established himself when he wrote to a friend in 1611:
“On every side I am overwhelmed with solicitations. Without the least
exaggeration, I may assure you that I have already had to refuse more
than a hundred pupils.”
In 1621 Rubens was called by Marie de’ Medici to Paris to decorate the
gallery in the Palace of the Luxembourg. At this period the _style
Rubens_, which he introduced on his return from Italy and which was
inspired by the late Italian Renaissance, was all the rage.