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FLEMISH ART EXHIBITION.
London is growing cosmopolitan in her taste for art. In the way of contemporary pictures alone, we have the universal collection at the Crystal Palace, a parallel on a minor scale to last year's Exposition des Beaux Arts at Paris - for three or four seasons past we have regularly had our gallery of irench art; we had one of German art, sedulously backed up for a while, but which appears to have been found out as un- interesting, and to have succumbed; and now we have, in the same room where the French pictures were housed, a collection of the Flemish, or, as it is more commonly termed, the Belgian school. This school, as we have before had occasion to note, is a close offshoot, not of the older Flemish school, whether of Van Eyck or of Rubens, nor of the Dutch school of drunken boors and prosaic landscape, but of the actual French school. One sees a distinctive painting here and there, which one perceives at once to be Flemish, and which could not be French. The vapid domesticities of De Braekeleer, " Chevalier of the Order of Leopold," with something of modern sentimentalism foisted upon the emptiness of Terriers, without his limited truthfulness ; the mechanical moonlights and lampights of Van Schendel, perpetual repe- tition of a single trick, which makes grown babies gape in admiration ; enormous raw-coloured cattle-pieces, like that of Stocquart, (or those of Verboeckhoven, who is not represented in the present collection,) re- spectable in some regards, but very different from the grand breadth and nature of the French in such subjects,—these do not derive from the vivid and characteristic art of France. But the general stock of a Bel- gian exhibition is simply French art transplanted across the frontier. The painters of great " historic" canvasses, such as Gallait and Wappers (also unrepresented here) resemble their French brethren; and so the genre and landscape painters. Of individual differences among the good men there are necessarily plenty; of national differences, little or no- thing. Strange doctrine as it is to lay down, the fact appears to be so for the present : the weakness of Belgian art lies in its Flemishness, its strength in its Gallicism; and, as an outlying branch of French art, the Belgian school is both flourishing and honourable. The exhibition in Pall Mall constitutes a creditable presentment of the school. The absence of two of its first artists, however, Joseph Stevens and Henri Leys, is sensibly felt; that of Leys especially being matter of grave regret, as the character of his admirable mediaeval scenes is some- thing entirely distinct from all other art whatever, and, while not de- parting conspicuously from French method, would of itself suffice, in choice of subject and in point of view, to individualize or even national- ize the gallery.
The piece de resistance is the single contribution of Alfred Stevens,— the "Poor Woman arrested as a Vagabond," which was a chief feature of the Belgian department in the Paris Exposition. In simple manly character, in noble colour, and in masterly treatment, this work could scarcely be overpraised. Sticklers for " composition " will object to the straight line of figures, and the naturalism of the work partakes some- what of the literal order ; but the picture should be most warmly greeted by those in whose eyes strong truth, expressed with directness and power, overrides the dogmas of the schools. The head of the woman, bowed in lifelong sorrow and present shame, and the hard clasp with which her thin hand holds the infant to her bosom, are perfectly truth- ful. Patiently she treads the pathway of crunched snow between the white heaps on either side; snow loads the posts and the background line of dead wall ; and even the well-clothed gendarme blows his fingers in the raw cold. The charitable lady kressing forward with her purse is
refreshingly different from the sentimentalities which form the common stock in'trade for such subjects ; insomuch that one is scarcely inclined to quarrel with her for failing on the opposite side of a want of evident interest or sympathy. But that we have spoken of the picture before, we might enter further into its details and artistic qualities.
The "Coast Scene near Ostend" of J. J. Eeckhout is a sensible straightforward study of a fisher-girl pacing the sands, her fish-basket slang to her back ; the whole scene clearly realized to the eye, and its accessories well, though only with broad touches, indicated. Another capitalstudy, quite in the easy dim-toned French manner, is Hanoteau's " Frugal Meal"; elderly peasant, stalwart of limb, but rather small of head, in cotton nightcap, sharing his peasant-fare with his cat. Slingeneyer's "Siege of Haarlem" is about the best picture—a moderate-sized one —which we have seen from his hand. Women man the walls—(if we may avail ourselves of a "bull" for brevity's sake)—shout out their orders or their warnings, point the cannon, shoulder the guns; while the distress of the patriot garrison is shown in the lady, wasted and sunken, who is borne along in the arms of a dusky retainer, and whose sad passing is followed by the boding eyes of her daughter. A hulk. ing red-haired fellow in the foreground, about to apply the fuzee to the central cannon, is an uninteresting figure. Willems, whose Silk. mercer's Shop of the Seventeenth Century excited special attention at Paris for its pleasant style and technical cleverness, contributes, in an "Algerian Woman," a piece of gorgeous deep colour and pic- turesqueness, rivalling the best French work of like kind; the white robe barred across, the brilliant red variegated scarf, the severe Oriental vase, the hanging forest of raven curls, and the canopy of sky, grey in heat. There is no picturesqueness in English art to compete with this of the French and their auxiliaries. Perhaps, however, next to Alfred Stevens's, the picture which has most fascination in it throughout the gallery is " The Water-Party " of Gabriel Prevost ; whom, both from his manner and from his name being undistinguished by any honorary adjuncts, we infer to be a younger member of the school. M. Prevost's manner is the " intense " every one with set features, and wide eyes looking out at nothing. There is a trick in this, no doubt ; but a trick which, when managed with some real feeling, and with artistic skill, is certain to tell even upon most of those who see into it. Both these merits are present in M. Prevost's slight but effective little picture. The cavaliers and ladies, a pleasure-party with the shadow of unsatisfied long- ing upon every face, soothe their full hearts with music, skimming the silent water fringed with thin pale spring trees, which mark their calm leaves upon a level of burning sunset sky. Of the landscapes again, several are stamped with the impressive qua- lities of the finer French school. M. Chaigneau's " Setting Sun in the Landes " is admirably characteristic : the feeling sad, and even desolate. The sunset-red, barred with dusk, looms over the horizon; the boats lie empty on the marshy shore ; and a man drags the reedy swamp for fish. In Chintreuil'a "Autumn Twilight," a tree stands almost naked now, and the cattle are drinking while the vermeil-pink clouds, low and congregated, die out into the grey. De Knyff's " Landscape with Cat- tle " is a large picture, luminous, broad, and simple : his " Shady Brook, with Cattle Drinking" in the clear spaces broken with water-lilies, very pleasant and refreshing. "After the Storm," by Le Hon, has a grey gleaming sea under pale sky, rolling and pouring its massive waves with restless rush and rebound: but, through all the impulse and hurry- skurry, the artist has vividly expressed his subject—the storm is over. Another effect is very ably given by M. De Winter,—that of "Moon- light," with a "Herd of Deer Drinking" - the dimness and misty out- line, and the shifting uncertainty of moonlight, all real—not made up from tradition, but learned faithfully from nature. And there are other landscapes and views—such as Roelofs's "Forest of Fontainebleau" and Stroobant's " Old Flemish House"—which claim careful and approving examination.
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