It is known that Robert Campin was the master of two other Tournai artists, Rogier Van der Weyden and Jacques Daret, of whom the former soon far surpassed his teacher in renown. Daret entered the atelier of Robert Campin in 1418, when a lad of fourteen, obtained the title of apprentice in 1427, and became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in 1432. One of his pictures, a panel showing the Nativity, was in the collection of the late Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan. Van der Weyden, whose Walloon name was Roger de la Pasture, became one of Campin’s apprentices in 1427—the same date as Daret—and was admitted to the guild of the painters at Tournai in 1432. He spent much of his time at Brussels, however, and is sometimes considered as belonging to that city rather than Tournai. A “Descent from the Cross” now at the Escorial is his most famous picture. It was painted for the Archers’ Company at Louvain and a copy of it, made by the master himself, was hung in the Church of St. Pierre in that city. About 1430 Van der Weyden was commissioned to paint four large panels for the Hall of Justice in the new Hotel de Ville at Brussels. Two of these showed Trajan, the Just Emperor, and the other two depicted the Justice of Herkenbald, and for more than two centuries the series was regarded as the finest group of paintings in the Low Countries. They were destroyed at the bombardment of Brussels in 1695, but tapestries copied from the originals still exist in the Museum at Berne, having been captured by the Swiss when Charles the Bold was defeated at Granson.
In 1443 the artist began what in the judgment of the art critics was his most important work, an altarpiece representing “The Last Judgment” for the chapel of a hospital at Beaune, near Dijon in Burgundy, where it still remains. The museum at Antwerp contains a triptych of the Seven Sacraments by this master, showing the interior of a cathedral suggestive of that of Tournai—and, in fact, it was for the Bishop of Tournai that it was originally painted. Nearly every important art gallery in Europe contains one or more works by Van der Weyden, who not only was very industrious, receiving numerous orders from the great men of his day, but fortunate in having most of his masterpieces preserved from the destruction that overtook so much of the work of the early Flemish artists.
The former Cloth Hall of Tournai, erected in 1610, was completely and very successfully restored in 1884, and is now used to house an admirable little collection of paintings and a museum of antiquities. The paintings are, for the most part, the work of Tournai artists, and most of its three hundred and eighty titles are of local rather than international interest. There are several works, however, of the highest rank, and the museum as a whole serves admirably to illustrate the fact that the traditions and inspiration of the first great masters of Flemish painting, whose work has made the name of Tournai illustrious for all time, have never been wholly forgotten in their native city. To be sure, there is nothing to represent Robert Campin or Jacques Daret, nor had the caretaker ever heard of either of them—a fact hardly to be wondered at, since the works of the former have not yet been fully identified by the critics. Van der Weyden is credited with a “Descent from the Cross” in the museum catalogue, but many critics hold this to be a copy of a lost work by Hugo Van der Goes. Those in charge of the museum have wisely included some excellent photographs of the more famous works by Van der Weyden in the leading European galleries—a plan that might well be followed with respect to the other notable works by Tournaisian artists. The masterpiece of the collection is the well known “Last Honours to Counts Egmont and Horn,” by Louis Gallait, the greatest of Tournai’s modern artists, whose statue stands in the little park before the railway station. A replica of this fine but gruesome work was painted by the artist for the Antwerp museum. The Tournai museum contains nearly a dozen other works bequeathed to the city by this painter, including several admirable portraits—a branch in which he was especially skilful. The powerful “Abdication of Charles V” by this master hangs in the Brussels museum, and his notable “Last Moments of the Comte d’Egmont” in the museum of Berlin.
A TRIPTYCH OF THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS BY ROGIER VAN DER WEYDEN.
Equally fine in a very different way, but less widely known, is a spirited painting by a comparatively unknown artist, Van Severdonck, representing the Princess of Epinoy valiantly defending a breach in the walls during the siege of Tournai in 1581. We were unable to obtain a photograph of this admirable work as it is so hung that it is difficult to get a good light upon it. A fine portrait of St. Donatian is attributed in the catalogue to Jan Gossaert or Mabuse (from Maubeuge where he was born). By some critics it is assigned to Bellegambe, who was born at Douai in French Flanders and was a contemporary of Gossaert. The museum also contains works by Hennebicq, who painted the historical picture of Philip Augustus granting a charter to the city of Tournai in the Hotel de Ville; Hennequin, the teacher of Gallait; Stallaert, whose “Death of Dido” is in the museum of Brussels, and several other natives of Tournai who are less well known. From Robert Campin, who settled at Tournai about 1406 and died in 1444, to Louis Gallait, whose three great masterpieces were painted between 1840 and 1850, and to Stallaert and Hennebicq, who laid aside their brushes in the first decade of the present century, there extends a period of five hundred years during which the noble art of painting has been practised and taught at Tournai by men of commanding genius—a record in the history of art that no town in the world of similar size has ever equalled.
It is worthy of remark, in passing, that the art of sculpture which was practised at Tournai with such notable success as early as the thirteenth century, and steadily thereafter for several hundred years, has not survived to the present day. There are no modern sculptors in the list of Tournaisian artists, but the cathedral is a veritable museum of the stone carvings of the past. The men of the chisel, moreover, must be credited with giving some of the inspiration that made the work of the early artists of the brush so notable. Van der Weyden, particularly, shows the influence of sculpture and a marked appreciation of its effects in the framework and backgrounds of many of his pictures. Moreover, for several centuries the sculptors of Tournai enjoyed a renown that extended throughout Flanders and northern France. In the churches of Tournai and of many other cities examples of their work can be seen that show a continuous record of achievement from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries.
Closely allied to the carvers of stone were those who worked in metals and of these Tournai had its full share. A street of the Goldsmiths (rue des Orfévres) near the Grande Place indicates the importance of that industry in ancient times. The best example of this branch of Tournaisian art is to be found in the treasury of the cathedral. This is the superb Chasse, or Reliquary of St. Eleuthereus, which is considered to be one of the finest products of the goldsmith’s art during the Middle Ages. While the name of the maker of this masterpiece is unknown, it is unquestionably of Tournaisian origin and was completed in 1247. Built in the form of a sarcophagus, and made of silver, heavily gilded, it is almost bewildering in the richness and intricacy of its decorations and filigrees. At one end is a large seated figure of Christ, at the other of St. Eleuthereus, while the sides contain figures of the Virgin and the Apostles. Around, above and below these chief figures the artist has placed a labyrinth of minor ones, of churches and landscapes, of columns, arches and architectural embellishments, all carved with a richness of design that cannot be adequately described. Still older, for it dates from 1205, is the Chasse de Notre Dame, another treasure of the cathedral. This was made by Nicolas de Verdun, a citizen of Tournai, and is of wood, painted and adorned with curious bas-reliefs representing incidents from the New Testament. A third chasse, which on account of its great value is kept under lock and key in the treasury, like that of St. Eleuthereus, is called the Chasse des Damoiseaux. It is made of silver and bears in relief, and enamelled, the arms of some of the patrician families of the city in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the Confrerie des Damoiseaux held many brilliant tournaments in Tournai and other cities. This chasse, the keeper told us, was not made at Tournai, but at Bruges. Although very beautiful, it is not considered so notable a work of art as its companion.
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Tournai rivalled Dinant as a producer of fine copper and brassware, and in this industry the artistic instincts of its citizens soon led them to produce pieces of remarkable distinction. One of the finest of these is the baptismal font in the church of Notre Dame at Hal, made in 1446. The artisans of Tournai turned out a prodigious number of fine products of the copper-smith’s art during the two centuries mentioned—lamps, candlesticks, chandeliers, funeral monuments, crucifixes and other religious articles; and, in fact, it was not until the eighteenth century that this industry declined, only to give place to the manufacture of gilded bronze ware.
The cathedral and the museum of antiquities contain some choice examples of another great Tournaisian art industry of the Middle Ages—the manufacture of rich tapestries. During the fourteenth century the renown of the products of Tournai in this field was already considerable, and between 1440 and 1480 its artisans surpassed even those of Arras. In richness of colouring, diversity and sprightliness of subjects, beauty of design and workmanship, the tapestries of Tournai rank among the finest art productions of the Middle Ages. In 1477, when Louis XI seized Arras and dispersed its workmen, many of them fled to Tournai, Audenaerde and Brussels, establishing the industry in those cities. Tournai, where it had already made great progress, was the first to benefit by this emigration and for a time became the leading tapestry-making centre in Europe. It was the school of Tournai that was the true forerunner of the still more famous tapestry weavers of Brussels in depicting historical and mythological scenes of the utmost vivacity and richness, while the ateliers of Audenaerde specialised more largely in quieter pastoral scenes and landscapes. Philip the Good, the most fastidious connoisseur of his age, ordered several tapestries at Tournai, including the history of Gideon in eight panels to decorate the Hall of the Order of the Golden Fleece. In the cathedral the most notable of the Tournai tapestries illustrates vividly the story of Joseph, while one of the best in the museum depicts the history of Abraham—the angels announcing the birth of Isaac. The border of a Tournai tapestry usually bears the mark of the ateliers of that city, a castle tower, which is plainly to be seen on the one last mentioned. The cathedral also possesses a remarkable tapestry of Arras, made by Pierrot Féré in 1402, and depicting incidents connected with the lives of St. Piat and St. Eleuthereus and the plague at Tournai. This masterpiece originally hung above the stalls in the choir, and more than half of it has been destroyed at one time or another. The remainder has been placed in a continuous panel, like a panorama, around a semi-circular chapel back of the treasury, and constitutes one of the most curious relics of the mediæval art to be seen in Europe. According to some authorities the designs for this work were drawn by one of the artists of the Tournai school of painters from which Van der Weyden subsequently received his instruction. At all events the scenes are extremely naïve, and the artist has inserted sundry little devils who are giving expression to their contempt of the various religious ceremonies depicted in some of the sections in a manner that, to say the least, is most unconventional.