Chapter 22

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.

James Weak has destroyed the legend that Hans Memling painted his St. Ursula for the benefit of St. Jean's Hospital as a recompense for treatment while sick there. He was a burgher living comfortably at Bruges. The museum is a short distance from the hospital. Its Van Eyck (Jan), La Vierge et l'Enfant--known as the Donator because of the portrait of George van der Paele--is its chief treasure, though there is the portrait of Jan's wife; Gerard David's Judgment of King Cambyses, and the savage execution companion picture; Memling's triptych, St. Christopher bearing the Christ Child, and David's masterpiece, The Baptism of Christ. Holbein never painted a head with greater verisimilitude than Van Eyck's rendering of the Donator. What an eye! What handling, missing not a wrinkle, a fold of the aged skin, the veins in the senile temples, or the thin soft hair above the ears! What synthesis! There are no niggling details, breadth is not lost in this multitude of closely observed and recorded facts. The large eyes gaze devoutly at the vision of the Child, and if neither Virgin nor Son is comely there is character delineated. The accessories must fill the latter-day painter avid of surface loveliness with consuming envy.

But it is time for sleep. The Brugeois cocks have crowed, the sun is setting, and eyelids are lowering. Lucky you are if your dreams evoke the brilliant colours, the magical shapes of the Primitives of Bruges the Beautiful.

THE MOREAU MUSEUM

Out of the beaten track of sight-seers, and not noticed with particular favour by the guide-books, the museum founded by Gustave Moreau at 14 Rue de la Rochefoucauld in Paris, is known only to a comparatively few artists and amateurs. You seldom hear Americans speak of this rare collection, it is never written about in the magazines. In September, 1897, Moreau made a will leaving his house and its contents to the State. He died in 1898 (not in 1902, as Bryan's dictionary has it), and in 1902 President Loubet authorised the Minister of Public Instruction to accept this rich legacy in the name of the republic. The artist was not known to stranger countries; indeed he was little known to his fellow-countrymen. Huysmans had cried him up in a revolutionary article; but to be praised by Huysmans was not always a certificate of fame. That critic was more successful in attracting public attention to Degas and Rops; and Moreau, a born eclectic, though without any intention of carrying water on both shoulders, was regarded suspiciously by his associates at the Beaux-Arts, while the new men he praised, Courbet, Manet, Whistler, Monet, would hold no commerce with him. To this day opinion is divided as to his merits, he being called a _pasticheur_ or else a great painter-poet. Huysmans saw straight into the heart of the enigma--Gustave Moreau is poet and painter, a highly endowed man who had the pictorial vision in an unusual degree; whose brush responded to the ardent brain that directed it, the skilled hand that manipulated it; always responded, we say, except in the creation of life. His paintings are, strictly speaking, magnificent still-life. No vital current animates their airless, gorgeous, and sometimes cadaverous surfaces.

Like his friend Gustave Flaubert, with whom he had so much in common (at least on the Salammbô side of that writer), Moreau was born to affluence. His father was a government architect; he went early to the Êcole des Beaux-Arts, and also studied under Picot. In 1852 he had a Pietà in the Salon (he was born April 6,1826), and followed it the next season with a Darius and a large canvas depicting an episode from the Song of Songs. The latter was purchased for the Dijon Museum. At the Universal Exhibition of 1855 he showed a monster work, The Athenians and the Minotaur. He withdrew from the public until 1864, when his Oedipus and the Sphinx set Paris talking. He exhibited until 1880 various canvases illustrative of his studies in classic literatures and received sundry medals. He was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1888, replacing Boulanger. He was decorated in 1875 with the Legion of Honour and made _officier_ in 1883. When a member of the Institute he had few friends, and as professor at the Beaux-Arts he disturbed the authorities by his warm praise of the Primitives. Altogether a career meagre in exciting incident, though singularly rich and significant on the intimate side.

A first visit to the museum proved startling. We had seen and admired the fifteen water-colours at the Luxembourg, among them the famous Apparition, but for the enormous number of pictures, oil, water-colour, pastels, drawings, cartons, studies, we were unprepared. The bulky catalogue registers 1,132 pieces, and remember that while there are some unfinished canvases the amount of work executed--it is true during half a century--is nevertheless a testimony to Moreau's muscular and nervous energy, poetic conception, and intensity of concentration. Even his unfinished pictures are carried to a state of elaboration that would madden many modern improvisers in colour. Apart from sheer execution, there is a multitude of visions that must have been struggled for as Jacob wrestled with the Angel, for Moreau's was not a facile mind. He brooded over his dreams, he saw them before he gave them shape. He was familiar with all the Asiatic mythologies, and for him the pantheon of Christian saints must have been bone of his bone. The Oriental fantasy, the Buddhistic ideas, the fluent knowledge of Persian, Indian, and Byzantine histories, customs, and costumes sets us to wondering if this artist wasn't too cultured ever to be spontaneous. He recalls Prester John and his composite faiths.