Delbeke and Pauwels, when they both died within a few months of each
other, in 1891. In these decorations the artists traced the history of
Ypres from 1187 to 1383, the date of the great siege, showing taste and
elegance in the compositions, notably in that called the "Wedding feast
of Mahaut, daughter of Robert of Bethune, with Mathias of Lorraine
(1314)."
One of the panels by M. Pauwels showed most vividly the progress of the
"Pest," under the title of the "Mort d'Ypres" (_de Dood van Yperen_,
Flemish). It represented the "Fossoyeur" calling upon the citizens upon
the tolling of the great bell of St. Martin's, to bring out their dead
for burial.
M. Delbeke's talent was engaged upon scenes illustrating the civil life
of the town, the gatherings in celebration of the philanthropic and
intellectual events in its remarkable history, a task in which he was
successful in spite of the carping of envious contemporaries.
A committee of artists was appointed to examine his work, and although
this body decided in his favor, it may be that the criticism to which
he was subjected hastened his death. At any rate the panels remained
unfinished, no other painter having the courage to carry out the
projected work.
[Illustration: Arcade of the Cloth Hall: Ypres]
The original sketches for these great compositions were preserved in the
museum of the town, but the detailed drawings, some in color, were, up
to the outbreak of the war in 1914, in the Museum of Decorative Arts in
Brussels, together with the cartoons of another artist, Charles de Groux
(1870), to whom the decoration of the Halles had been awarded by the
State in competition. A most sumptuous Gothic apartment was that styled
the "Salle Echevinale," restored with great skill in recent years by a
concurrence of Flemish artists, members of the Academy. Upon either side
of a magnificent stone mantel, bearing statues in niches of kings,
counts and countesses, bishops and high dignitaries, were large well
executed frescoes by MM. Swerts and Guffens, showing figures of the
evangelists St. Mark and St. John, surrounded by myriads of counts and
countesses of Flanders, from the time of Louis de Nevers and Margaret of
Artois to Charles the Bold, and Margaret of York, whose tombs are in the
Cathedral at Bruges. The attribution of these frescoes to Melchior
Broederlam does not, it would seem, accord with the style or the date of
their production, M. Alph. van den Peereboom thinks, and he gives
credit for the work to two painters who worked in Ypres in 1468--MM.
Pennant and Floris Untenhoven.
In my search for the curious and picturesque, I came, one showery day,
upon a passageway beneath the old belfry which led to the tower of St.
Martin's. Here one might believe himself back in the Middle Ages. On
both sides of the narrow street were ancient wooden-fronted houses not a
whit less interesting or well preserved than that front erected in the
chamber of the "Halles." This small dark street led to a vast and
solitary square. On one side were lofty edifices called the Colonnade of
the "Nieuwerck," at the end of which was a quaint vista of the Grand'
Place. On the other side was a range of most wondrous ancient
constructions; the _conciergerie_ and its attendant offices, bearing
finials and gables of astonishing richness of character, and ornamented
with _chefs-d'oeuvres_ of iron-work, marking the dates of erection,
all of them prior to 1616. In this square not a soul appeared, nor was
there a sound to be heard save the cooing of some doves upon a rooftree,
although I sat there upon a stone coping for the better part of a half
hour. Then all at once, out of a green doorway next the _conciergerie_,
poured a throng of children, whose shrill cries and laughter brought me
back to the present. One wonders where now are these merry
light-hearted little ones, who thronged that gray grass-grown square
behind the old Cloth Hall in 1912....
In this old square I studied the truly magnificent south portal and
transept of St. Martin's, the triple portal with its splendid polygonal
rose window, and its two graceful slender side towers, connecting a long
gallery between the two smaller side portals. One's impression of this
great edifice is that of a sense of noble proportions, rather than
ornateness, and this is to be considered remarkable when one remembers
the different epochs of its construction. That the choir was commenced
in 1221 is established by the epitaph of Hugues, _prévôt_ of St.
Martin's, whose ashes reposed in the church which he built: that the
first stone of the nave transepts was laid with ceremony by Marguerite
of Constantinople in 1254; that the south portal was of the fifteenth
century and that a century later the chapel called the _doyen_ toward
the south wall at the foot of the tower, was erected. The tower itself,
visible from all parts of the town, was the conception of Martin
Untenhoven of Malines, and replaced a more primitive one in 1433. Of
very severe character, its great bare bulk rose to an unfinished height
of some hundred and seventy feet, and terminated in a squatty sort of
pent-house roof of typical Flemish character. It was flanked by four
smaller, unfinished towers, one at each corner. This tower, one may
recall, figures in many of the pictures of Jean van Eyck. It is not
without reason that Schayes, in his "Histoire de l'Architecture en
Belgique," speaks of the choir of St. Martin's as "one of the most
remarkable of the religious constructions of the epoch in Belgium." Of
most noble lines and proportion if it were not for the intruding altar
screen in the Jesuit style, which mars the effect, the ensemble were
well-nigh perfect.
Its decoration, too, was remarkable. A fresco at the left of the choir,
with a portrait of Robert de Bethune, Count of Flanders, who died at
Ypres in 1322 and was buried in the church, was uncovered early in the
eighties during a restoration; this had been most villainously repainted
by a local "artist"(?); and I mortally offended the young priest who
showed it to me, by the vehemence of my comments.
The stalls of the choir, in two banks or ranges, twenty-seven above,
twenty-four below, bore the date of 1598, and the signature of d'Urbain
Taillebert, a native sculptor of great merit, who also carved the great
_Jube_ of Dixmude (see drawing). Other works of Taillebert are no less
remarkable, notably the superb arcade with the Christ triumphant
suspended between the columns at the principal entrance. He was also
the sculptor of the mausoleum of Bishop Antoine de Hennin, erected in
1622 in the choir.
In the pavement before the altar a plain stone marked the resting place
of the famous Corneille Jansen (Cornelius Jansenius), seventh Bishop of
Ypres, who died of the pest the 6th of May, 1638. One recalls that the
doctrine of Jansen gave birth to the sect of that name which still
flourishes in Holland.
Following the Rue de Lille one came upon the old tower of St. Pierre,
massed among tall straight lines of picturesque poplars, its bulk
recalling vaguely the belfry of the Cloth Hall. In this church was shown
a curious little picture, representing the devil setting fire to the
tower, which was destroyed in 1638, but was later rebuilt after the
original plans. The interior had no dignity of style whatever. There
were, however, some figures of the saints Peter and Paul attributed to
Carel Van Yper, which merited the examination of connoisseurs. They are
believed by experts to have been the "volets" of a triptych of which the
center panel was missing.
[Illustration: Gateway, Wall, and Old Moat: Ypres]
The Place St. Pierre was picturesque and smiling. Following this route
we found on the right at the end of a small street the hospital St.
Jean, with an octagonal tower, which enshrined some pictures attributed
to the prolific Carel Van Yper, comment upon which would be perhaps
out of place here. On the corner of this street was a most charming old
façade in process of demolishment, which we deplored.
Now we reached the Porte de Lille again and the remains of the old walls
of the town. Again and again we followed this same route, each time
finding some new beauty or hidden antiquity which well repaid us for
such persistence. Few of the towns of Flanders presented such treasures
as were to be found in Ypres. Following the walk on the ramparts, past
the _caserne_ or infantry barracks, one came upon the place of the
ancient château of the counts, a vast construction under the name of "de
Zaalhof." Here was an antique building called the "Lombard," dated 1616,
covered with old iron "ancres" and crosses between the high small-paned
windows.
By the Rue de Beurre one regained the Grand' Place, passing through the
silent old Place Van den Peereboom in the center of which was the statue
of the old Burgomaster of that name.
The aspect of this silent grass-grown square behind the Cloth Hall was
most impressive. Here thronged the burghers of old, notably on the
occasion of the entry of Charles the Bold and his daughter Marguerite,
all clad in fur, lace, and velvet to astonish the inhabitants, who
instead of being impressed, so outshone the visitors, by their own and
their wives' magnificence of apparel, that Marguerite was reported to
have left the banquet hall in pique. The belfry quite dominated the
square at the eastern angle, where were the houses forming the
_conciergerie_.
Turning to the right by way of the Chemin de St. Martin, one found the
ancient Beguinage latterly used by the gendarmerie as a station, the
lovely old chapel turned into a stable! In this old town were hundreds
of remarkable ancient houses, each of which merits description in this
book. But perhaps in this brief and very fragmentary description the
reader may find reason for the author's enthusiasm, and agree with him
that Ypres was perhaps the most unique and interesting of all the
destroyed towns in Flanders.
Commines
Commines
It was not hard to realize that here we were in the country of
Bras-de-Fer, of Memling, of Cuyp, and Thierry d'Alsace, for, on
descending from the halting, bumping train at the small brick station,
we were face to face with a bizarre, bulbous-topped tower rising above
the houses surrounding a small square, and now quite crowded with large,
hollow-backed, thick-legged Flemish horses, which might have been those
of the followers of Thierry gathered in preparation for an onslaught
upon one of the neighboring towns.
It seemed as though any turning might bring us face to face with a grim
cohort of mounted armed men in steel corselet and morion, bearing the
banner of Spanish Philip, so sinister were the narrow, ill-paved
streets, darkened by the projecting second stories of the somber,
gray-stone houses. Rarely was there an open door or window. As we
passed, our footsteps on the uneven stones awakened the echoes. A fine
drizzle of rain which began to fall upon us from the leaden sky did not
tend to enliven us, and we hastened toward the small Grand' Place, where
I noted on a sign over a doorway the words, "In de Leeuw Van Vlanderen"
(To the Flemish Lion), which promised at least shelter from the
rainfall. Here we remained until the sun shone forth.
Commines (Flemish, Komen) was formerly a fortified town of some
importance in the period of the Great Wars of Flanders. It was the
birthplace of Philip de Commines (1445-1509). It was, so to say, one of
the iron hinges upon which the great military defense system of the
burghers swung and creaked in those dark days. To-day, in these rich
fields about the small town, one can find no traces of the old-time
bastions which so well guarded the town from Van Artevelde's assaults.
Inside the town were scarcely any trees, an unusual feature for
Flanders, and on the narrow waterways floated but few craft.
The only remarkable thing by virtue of its Renaissance style of
architecture was the belfry and clock tower, although some of the old
Flemish dwelling houses in the market square, projecting over an ogival
Colonnade extending round one end of the square, and covering a sort of
footway, were of interest, uplifting their step-like gables as a silent
but eloquent protest against a posterity devoid of style, all of them to
the right and left falling into line like two wings of stone in order to
allow the carved front of the belfry to make a better show, and its
pinnacled tower to rise the prouder against the sky.
One was struck with the ascendency of the religious element over all
forms of art, and this was a characteristic of the Flemings. One was
everywhere confronted with a curious union of religion and war,
representations peopled exclusively by seraphic beings surrounded or
accompanied by armed warriors. Everything is adoration, resignation,
incense fumes, psalmody, and crusaders. The greatest buildings we saw
were ecclesiastical, the richest dresses were church vestments, even
"the princes and burghers accompanied by armed knights remind one of
ecclesiastics celebrating the Mass. All the women are holy virgins,
seemingly. The chasm between the ideal and the reality itself, however
idealized, but by meditation manifested pictorially." ("The Land of
Rubens," C.B. Huet).
We sat for an hour in the small, sooty, tobacco-smelling _estaminet_
(from the Spanish _estamento_--an inn), and then the skies clearing
somewhat we fared forth to explore the belfry, which in spite of its
sadly neglected state was still applied to civic use. Some dark, heavy,
oaken beams in the ceiling of the principal room showed delicately
carved, fancy heads, some of them evidently portraits. At the rear of
the tower on the ground floor, I came upon a vaulted apartment supported
on columns, and being used as a storehouse. Its construction was so
handsome, it was so beautifully lighted from without, as to make one
grieve for its desecration; it may have served in the olden time as a
refectory, and if so was doubtless the scene of great festivity in the
time of Philip de Commines, who was noted for the magnificence of his
entertainments.
The Flemish burghers of the Middle Ages first built themselves a church;
when that was finished, a great hall. That of Ypres took more than two
hundred years to complete. How long this great tower of Commines took, I
can only conjecture. Its semi-oriental pear-shaped (or onion-shaped, as
you will) tower was certainly of great antiquity; even the unkempt
little priest whom I questioned in the Grand' Place could give me little
or no information concerning it. Indeed, he seemed to be on the point of
resenting my questions, as though he thought that I was in some way
poking fun at him. I presume that it was the scene of great splendor in
their early days. For here a count of Flanders or a duke of Brabant
exercised sovereign rights, and at such a ceremony as the laying of a
corner-stone assumed the place of honor, although the real authority was
with the burghers, and founded upon commerce. While granting this
privilege, the Flemings ever hated autocracy. They loved pomp, but any
attempt to exercise power over them infuriated them.
[Illustration: The Belfry: Commines]
"The architecture of the Fleming was the expression of aspiration,"
says C.B. Huet ("The Land of Rubens").
"The Flemish hall has often the form of a church; art history, aiming at
classification, ranges it among the Gothic by reason of its pointed
windows. The Hall usually is a defenceless feudal castle without moats,
without porticullis, without loopholes. It occupies the center of a
market-place. It is a temple of peace, its windows are as numerous as
those in the choirs of that consecrated to the worship of God.
"From the center of the building uprises an enormous mass, three, four,
five stories high, as high as the cathedral, perhaps higher. It is the
belfry, the transparent habitation of the alarm bell (as well as the
chimes). The belfry cannot defend itself, a military character is
foreign to it. But as warden of civic liberty it can, at the approach of
domination from without, or autocracy uplifting its head within, awaken
the threatened ones, and call them to arms in its own defence. The
belfry is thus a symbol of a society expecting happiness from neither a
dynasty nor from a military despotism, but solely from common
institutions, from commerce and industry, from a citizen's life, budding
in the shadow of the peaceful church, and borrowing its peaceful
architecture from it. To the town halls of Flanders belonged the place
of honor among the monuments of Belgian architecture. No other country
of Europe offered so rich a variety in that respect.
"Courtrai replaces Arras; Oudenaarde and Ypres follow suit. Then come
Tournai, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels, Louvain. Primary Gothic,
secondary Gothic, tertiary Gothic, satisfying every wish. Flanders and
Brabant called the communal style into life. If ever Europe becomes a
commune, the communards have but to go to Ypres to find motifs from
their architects."
Since this was written, in 1914, many, if not most, of these great
buildings thus enumerated above, are now in ruins, utterly destroyed for
all time!
Bergues
Bergues
A tiny sleepy town among the fringe of great willow trees which marked
the site of the ancient walls. Belted by its crumbling ramparts, and
like a quaint gem set in the green enamel of the smiling landscape, it
offered a resting place far from the cares and noise of the world.
Quite ignored by the guide books, it had, I found, one of the most
remarkable belfries to be found in the Netherlands, and a chime of sweet
bells, whose melodious sounds haunted our memories for days after our
last visit in 1910.
There were winding, silent streets bordered by mysteriously closed and
shuttered houses, but mainly these were small and of the peasant order.
On the Grand' Place, for of course there was one, the tower sprang from
a collection of rather shabby buildings, of little or no character, but
this did not seem to detract from the magnificence of the great tower. I
use the word "great" too often, I fear, but can find no other word in
the language to qualify these "Campanili" of Flanders.
This one was embellished with what are known as "ogival arcatures,"
arranged in zones or ranks, and there were four immense turrets, one at
each corner, these being in turn covered with arcatures of the same
character. These flanked the large open-work, gilded, clock face.
Surmounting this upon a platform was a construction in the purely
Flemish style, containing the chime of bells, and the machinery of the
carillon, and topping all was a sort of inverted bulb or gourd-shaped
turret, covered with blue slate, with a gilded weathervane about which
the rooks flew in clouds.
The counterpart of this tower was not to be found anywhere in the
Netherlands, and one is surprised that it was so little known.
[Illustration: The Towers of St. Winoc: Bergues]
Upon the occasion of our visit the town was given up to the heavy and
stolid festivities of the "Kermesse," which is now of interest here only
to the laboring class and the small farmers of the region. The center of
attraction, as we found in several other towns, seemed to be an
incredibly fat woman emblazoned on a canvas as the "Belle Heloise" who
was seated upon a sort of throne draped in red flannel, and exhibited a
pair of extremities resembling in size the masts of a ship, to the great
wonder of the peasants. There were also some shabby merry-go-rounds with
wheezy organs driven by machinery, and booths in which hard-featured
show women were frying waffles in evil smelling grease. After buying
some of these for the children who stood about with watering mouths,
we left the "Kermesse" and wandered away down a silent street towards a
smaller tower rising from a belt of dark trees.
This we found to be the remains of the ancient abbey of St. Winoc. A
very civil mannered young priest who overtook us on the road informed us
of this, and volunteered further the information that we were in what
was undoubtedly the ancient _jardin-clos_ of the Abbey. Of this retreat
only the two towers standing apart in the long grass remained, one very
heavy and square, supported by great buttresses of discolored brick, the
other octangular, in stages, and retaining its high graceful steeple.
We were unable to gain entrance to either of these towers, the doorways
being choked with weeds and the débris of fallen masonry. [The invaders
destroyed both of these fine historical remains in November, 1914,
alleging that they were being used for military observation by the
Belgian army.] These small towns of Flanders had a simple dignity of
their own which was of great attraction to the tourist, who could,
without disillusionment, imagine himself back in the dim past. In the
wayside inns or _estaminets_ one could extract amusement and profit
listening to the peasantry or admiring the sunlight dancing upon the
array of bottles and glass on the leaden counters, or watch the
peasants kneel and cross themselves before the invariable quaint niched
figure of the Virgin and Child under the hanging lighted lantern at a
street corner, the evidence of the piety of the village, or the throngs
of lace-capped, rosy-cheeked milkmaids with small green carts drawn by
large, black, "slobbering" dogs of fierce mien, from the distant farms,
on their way to market.
Thus the everyday life of the region was rendered poetic and artistic,
and all with the most charming unconsciousness.
Nieuport
Nieuport
In the midst of a level field to the east of the town of Nieuport in
1914 was a high square weather-beaten tower, somewhat ruinous, built of
stone and brick in strata, showing the different eras of construction in
the various colors of the brick work ranging from light reds to dark
browns and rich blacks. This tower, half built and square topped,
belonged to a structure begun in the twelfth century, half monastery,
half church, erected by the Templars as a stronghold. Repeatedly
attacked and set on fire, it escaped complete destruction, although
nearly laid in ruins by the English and burghers of Ghent in 1383, the
year of the famous siege of Ypres. During the Wars of 1600, it was an
important part of the fortifications, and from the platform of its tower
the Spanish garrison commanded a clear view of the surrounding country
and the distance beyond the broad moat, which then surrounded the strong
walls of Nieuport.
In plain view from this tower top were the houses of Furnes, grouped
about the church of Saint Nicolas to the southwest, while to the north
the wide belt of dunes, or sand hills, defended the plains from the
North Sea. Nearer were the populous villages of Westende and
Lombaerd-Zyde, connected with Nieuport by numerous small lakes and
canals derived from the channel of the Yser river, which flowed past the
town on its way to the sea.
[Illustration: The Tower of the Templars: Nieuport]
The history of Nieuport, from the terrible days of the Spanish invasion
down to these days of even worse fate, has been pitiable. Its former sea
trade after the Spanish invasion was never recovered, and its
population, which was beginning to be thrifty and prosperous up to 1914,
has now entirely disappeared. Nieuport is now in ashes and ruins. When I
passed the day there in the summer of 1910, it was a sleepy, quiet spot,
a small fishing village, with old men and women sitting in doorways and
on the waysides, mending nets, and knitting heavy woolen socks or
sweaters of dark blue. In the small harbor were the black hulls of
fishing boats tied up to the quaysides, and a small steamer from Ghoole
was taking on a cargo of potatoes and beets. Some barges laden with wood
were being pulled through the locks by men harnessed to a long tow rope,
and a savage dog on one of these barges menaced me with dripping fangs
and bloodshot eyes when I stopped to talk to the steersman, who sat on
the tiller smoking a short, evil-smelling pipe, while his "vrouwe" was
hanging out a heavy wash of vari-colored garments on a line from the
staff on the bow to a sweep fastened upright to the cabin wall.