CORRESPONDENCE.
THE FLEMISH "PRIMITIFS " AT BRUGES.
[To TIM EDITOR Or THZ " STZCTATOR.1
Sin,—Among the many loan exhibitions of recent years illustrative of special schools of art, few, if any, have equalled in interest and importance the collection of early Flemish paintings which has attracted so many visitors this summer to Bruges, and which is now about to close. The school is one that, compared with the early schools of Italy, has hitherto been comparatively little studied in England, and to many the collection now brought together will have come as a revelation. The Picture Section of the Exhibition is held in the Palace of the " Gouvernement Provincial," which is built on the site of the old family mansion of the Barons liervyn de Lettenhove, the present representative of which is President of the Exhibition; and to his initiative and energy the success of the enterprise is in great measure due. A scarcely less interesting collection is in the neighbouring "Hotel Gruuthuuse,"—an assemblage of old-wory. art treasures of
varied nature : carvings in wood and stone; reliquaries, crosses, and other church ornaments in gold, silver, and enamel; jewellery, medals, illuminated missals, brocades, vestments, and lace, brought together, not only for their intrinsic excellence, but with the view of supplementing and illustrating the pictures by showing the objects that appear as accessories and decorations in the works of the Flemish " Primitifs." To cross the threshold of the picture gallery is to enter upon a new world,—a world of untroubled beauty and serene tranquillity, of devotional reverence, of time-honoured traditions and mystic meaning, where pious burghers of Flanders kneel amid sainted mortals and celestial beings clad in glistening raiment. Here and there a martyrdom of hideous torture brings in a note of discord; but these discords are few and far between, and scarcely disturb the prevailing harmony of tone and feeling.
The art of Flemish painters in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was a restricted art. Their subjects were almost exclusively devotional or portraiture. The free and joyous spirit of the Renaissance, which changed the whole current of Italian art, hardly touched the art or life of Flanders. Their art is serious and sincere,—an art of earnest devotion, and of patient labour for the attainment of perfect workmanship.
Classical and allegorical themes are almost unknown, his- torical scenes or incidents of dramatic action are rare, the nude is but little studied or understood ; the figures are usually on a small scale, whether in portraits or in sacred subjects, and in neither is the type of women beautiful. But within these limitations a high standard of perfection is attained. Their instinctive sense of harmony and purity of colour is unerring ; their skill in the painting of acces- sories, brocaded draperies, armour, jewellery, is consummate; the delicate beauty of their landscape backgrounds cannot be surpassed. What they sought to attain they carried out with an unrivalled perfection of execution and of technique which forms a matter of wonder to painters of the present day. For the study of this school the Bruges Exhibition affords a unique opportunity. Works of artists, known and unknown, have been brought together from the churches, convents, museums, and private collections, not only of Belgium, but of France, Italy, Germany, and England. Experts and art critics from every country have met at Bruges, and by com- parison of pictures and interchange of views, aided by the patient and lifelong study of ancient archives by such men as our learned countryman, Mr. W. J. Weale, much knowledge and information has been acquired, many problems have been solved and many new ones started. Of the early art of Flanders, before it burst suddenly into full bloom under the Van Eyck Brothers in the opening years of the fifteenth century, few records are in existence. Perhaps the origins of this great school are to be sought chiefly in the miniature paintings that were the outcome of loving labour in the great Abbeys of the Netherlands, and of which noble specimens can now be seen in the "Hotel Gruuthuuse." Those ancient foundations, now almost entirely destroyed, suppressed, or removed, were in the Middle Ages not only schools of learning but storehouses of art treasures. But as time went on the old order changed. Commerce drew people into towns. Trades formed themselves into associations ; these gradually obtained charters and developed into Corporations and Guilds, the members of which, though no longer in connection with the Abbey, preserved a religious character, and placed them- selves under the protection of a patron saint. The rules of these Guilds were despotic. Each branch of art had its special Guild, whose members were often precluded from practisiug other forms of art.
The two brothers, Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, may he considered as not only the founders, but perhaps the greatest masters, of the Flemish school. In strength and in power of revealing character Jan's portraits have never been surpassed, and his great work now at Bruges, known as the "Iran de Paele Madonna," displays a mastery of drawing, of colour, and of rendering of sumptuous stuffs and armour which seems incredible in so early a master : while the "Angel of the Resurrection and the Three Marys," attributed to the elder brother, Hubert, reveals dramatic power and pathos of even higher character. Of their great joint chef d'ceuvre, the many -
panelled "Adoration of the Lamb," painted for the Cathedral of Ghent, where they lived and worked, only the two least attractive but strangely powerful panels, life-size figures of Adam and Eve, have found their way to the Bruges Exhibi- tion. Their only known pupil, Pieter Christus, shows much power in his figure composition and in the broad sweeps of his landscapes, which latter formed more than mere backgrounds to these old Flemings. Clear skies, blue hills, fantastic towers and quaint houses, verdant meadows, shady woods, and winding rivers, blend and harmonise in feeling with their figure groups. Some forty years after the death of the Van Eycks another bright star arose on the Flemish firmament, Hans Memline, the most attractive and sympathetic painter of his school, the " Fra Angelico" of the North. He is represented at Bruges by a. series of pictures illustrative of his whole art career, from his early triptych painted for Sir John Donne and contributed by the Duke of Devonshire, to the expanded and matured works of his later years, with their perfect mastery of technique. their gem-like glow of colour, their depth of devotional sentiment. His portraits, both of men and women, are delicate and subtle interpretations of character, a spiritual ennobling of the plain features of the burghers of Bruges and their homely wives. Slightly earlier in date than Memlinc is Roger de la Pasture (better known by the translated name of van der Weyden), a strong and realistic painter, who greatly influenced tbe early German schools, and is largely repre- sented at Bruges by forcible portraits and by Scriptural and othersubjects. Among them is a small " Pieth"of striking power and imagination, illumined by a vivid sky-glow, tbe departing light, not of the setting sun, but of the Light of the World.
Many other painters of the period command attention,— Diedrick Bouts, always picturesque in his conceptions of subjects ; Jacques Daret (Maitre de Flemalle) ; Hugo van der Goes, represented here by a fine "Death of the Virgin," but only to be fully appreciated by those who have seen his great altar-piece painted by order of the Portinari (the agents at. Bruges of the Medici) for the hospital of St. Mann Nuova at Florence; Johan Perreal (Maitre de Moulins), whose portrait of a Canon protected by St. Maurice, sent by the Glasgow Gallery, is one of the gems of the collection; and many others. But foremost among them is Gerard David, perhaps the strongest, the most varied and advanced of the whole group of Flemish painters. He is supposed, like many of his fellow-artists, to have visited Italy, and to have derived from that visit an added freedom of treatment and grace of composition, assimilating fresh ideas without losing the national type or the vigour of his native art. One exquisite picture, from the Rouen Gallery, consisting of the Virgin surrounded by angels and by ten virgin saints, with the artist himself and his wife and fellow-artist, Cornelia Cnoop, looking on in the back- ground, has much of the charm and beauty of an Italian " Santa Conversazione." In his great triptych of the "Baptism of Christ" the artist has carried out the ideal con- ceived in his mind with rare perfection of workmanship, beauty of colour and of landscape, and deep solemnity of feel- ing. The beautiful landscapes in which Gerard David's figures are placed show the growing importance given to that branch of art. In Joachim Patonir's composi- tions figures play a less and less prominent part, until U' some of his works they disappear altogether. Of Quintin Massys, of Antwerp, there are a few choice, though small, specimens. His delicate and refined art can be more fully appreciated in the Gallery of Brussels, which possesses his large and beautiful composition of the "Family of St. Anne," with its splendid shutter panels. With these great men art culminated in the Netherlands. They werasucceeded by numerous painters of more or less distinction, but in whom symptons of decadence soon .became visible. They began to seek inspiration from without instead of from within, and by endeavouring to imitate the Italian masters lost their distinc- tive power and quality. There were, however, men of real genius among them, such as Jean Gossart (better known as Mabase), in whom the signs of decay seemed rather signs of Progress, so full of charm and talent are his works. By the end of the sixteenth century the sun of Flemish art had fully Bet, to rise again nearly a century later under the very different art types of Rembrandt, Rubens, and Vandyck. Those will have had the good fortune to visit Bruges this ?ear will regret the approaching dispersal of her art treasures, but will retain lasting memories of old-world beauty and
Previous page
