The universality of the style Rubens in Western Europe for half a century is undeniable. This great genius was known and honoured in Italy: he was a favourite of the King of Spain and his brother, the Viceroy of the Netherlands; when he was not painting nor designing something, he took a rest by going to some foreign court on an embassy. On one of these, Charles I of England knighted him; Philip IV made him Secretary of the Privy Council. Pupils flocked to him as if his studio in Antwerp was the Mecca of art. He had scarcely established himself there when he wrote (1611): “On every side I am overwhelmed with solicitations: without the least exaggeration I may assure you that I have already had to refuse more than a hundred pupils.”
Every kind of decoration and design was subject to his brush. The Flemish tapestry weavers pestered him for cartoons: the famous printer, Moretus, must have him design title-pages, borders and vignettes for the “Imprimerie Plantin”: chapel ceilings, cars for cavalcades and triumphal arches all came alike to him; Marie de’ Medici was not satisfied until he had immortalized her in grandiose canvases on the walls of her new palace.
One of the Flemish artists who played a particularly important part in the introduction of the new Italian style into the Low Countries was Jacques Franquart (born in Brussels in 1577 and died there in 1651), an architect, who studied in Italy. He became the chief architect of the Archduke Albert, and engineer of the King of Spain in the Netherlands. Philip III made him a knight. Among his important works were the Church of the Jesuits in Brussels (the cornerstone of which was laid by Albert and Isabella in 1606) and the Church of the Grand Béguinage in Mechlin (1629–47).
The next name of importance is that of Artus Quillyn, or Quellin, born at St. Trond in 1625. He studied sculpture with Artus Quillyn the elder in Antwerp, studied in Rome and returned to Antwerp, where he died in 1700. The churches of Antwerp are full of his bold and masterly works. His masterpiece, the statue of God the Father, was executed in 1680 for the Cathedral of St. Sauveur in Bruges, where it still stands.
With Quillyn ranks Peter Verbrugghen of Antwerp. It is generally believed that he carved the fine pulpit at St. Walburge in Bruges, a work unexcelled among the sculpture of the seventeenth century. A kneeling figure representing Religion supports the pulpit with one hand and holds a cross in the other. Her attitude is noble, gracious and animated, and her expression admirable and exalted. Each corner of the base is ornamented with the figure of an angel in a niche and decorated with four medallions representing the four evangelists whose features are of imposing majesty. The sounding board in the form of a light and graceful shell, although supported by two cherubim with outstretched wings, seems suspended in the air. The stairway is flanked by four figures representing Adoration, Eloquence, Meditation and Study; and the balustrade, which is beautifully pierced in designs of branches and figures, is ornamented with figures representing the four elements: Earth, a rabbit chase; Air, hunting the falcon; Water, fishing with a line; and Fire, sacrifice of a material love. It would be impossible to carve oak more elaborately and boldly. This work was restored in 1845 by two Bruges artists, Van Wedeveldt and P. Buyck.
The Flemish wood-carver had still plenty of work to do in the churches; but in domestic furniture the lathe was making his services more and more unnecessary on bars and uprights; and the increasing craze for marquetry and the invasion of lacquer and japanned wares left him comparatively little to do.
Much beautiful carved work of the seventeenth century survives. Vilvorde Church has thirty-six upper and thirty-two lower oak stalls carved originally in 1663 for the priory of Groenendael; this is a magnificent specimen of the carver’s art. There is also lovely woodcarving of the middle of the century in St. Michael’s, Louvain. The Church of St. Walburge, Furnes, is also rich in carved oak. On the pulpit is a figure of St. John writing the Apocalypse; the upper part is supported by two palms, and a rock with an eagle. The choir stalls are particularly fine. The Ostend parish church has a fine pulpit carved in 1674.
The Church of St. Anne in Bruges is rich in carved work of this period. The choir stalls of oak were splendidly carved in the Renaissance style by Jean Schockaert and Fr. Schaepelinck in 1664. The oak organ case was carved in 1685 by Jacques Vanden Eynde, who was also the organist at Ypres. Fine bas-reliefs in the nave were executed by Martin Moenaert in 1673 and the ornate confessionals by Jan de Sangher in 1699. There is also a handsome communion bench made by an unknown carver in 1670, which is decorated with the busts of the four Evangelists and four Doctors of the Church with bas-relief panels of the Virgin, Joseph, St. Anne, St. Joachim, the Pascal Lamb and the Eucharist ornamented with bunches of grapes and garlands of wheat.
Carving was by no means confined to the churches: those who could afford it still beautified the furniture of castle and hall with the work of the chisel. Chests or bahuts, cabinets, armoires, tables, chairs and the old “sideboards,” known in England in Jacobean days as “court cupboards,” and in Flanders as credences or “buffet à deux corps,” were as highly ornamented with carving in the late Renaissance style as they were with Gothic ornament during the fifteenth century. During the Louis XIII period, the more important pieces of furniture usually assumed the forms and lines of Classic architecture. A typical bahut of this period (see Plate [LVII]), owes its interest chiefly to its architectural decorations. The fluted columns, though somewhat squat, which adorn the divisions of the front, produce a pleasing effect; the mouldings are strongly accented and their ornamentations are bold and in fine style. One can easily understand that this chest would not be out of place in any late Renaissance apartment, but would contribute to the decorative effect of the whole. The two side niches representing the two virtues contain statuettes—Prudence and Strength. The central panel tells the story of Judith and Holofernes with a directness and simplicity worthy of a Botticelli.
The two-storied buffet (buffet à deux corps) frequently received similar treatment, totally at variance with the handsome one reproduced in Plate [XLIII]. A splendid example decorated with the arms of Ypres, Ghent, Bruges and Franc, is preserved in the Ypres Museum. This was the work of Jan van de Velde, who carved it in 1644, and received 162 florins for his trouble.