IN THE COURT ROOM OF THE PALACE OF JUSTICE. BRUGES
“CHIMNEY PIECE OF THE FRANK” (Executed in 1529-30)
BELGIUM
Early Flemish Art
SIX
A great and beneficent man was Philip the Good, one of the magnificent Dukes of Burgundy who ruled over the Netherlands in the fifteenth century. In Bruges, their capital, craftsmen were encouraged in the making of brocades and fine glass, ornaments of precious metal, miniatures and illuminated manuscripts. Professor John C. Van Dyke remarks that, with the rise of the House of Burgundy, “The Flemish people became strong enough to defy both Germany and France, and wealthy enough, through their commerce with Spain, Italy and France to encourage art not only at the ducal court, but in the churches and among the citizens of the various towns.” The story of Flemish painting will be related and illustrated in a future number of The Mentor.
The brothers Van Eyck, Hubert (born 1370) and Jan (1390), were not the first of the Fleming painters to substitute oil for other mediums in mixing paints, but the use of oil paints became more popular after their invention of certain mellow colors associated with their names. Their most renowned work is the twelve-paneled altar-piece painted for St. Bavon’s Church, Ghent, the city of their birth. This is the most important work of the early Flemish school, in composition, drawing and lustrous detail. Hans Memling, the next great painter of the Flemish School, if we except that excellent draftsman and decorative artist, Roger van der Weyden, was especially successful in making portraits and religious pictures. His infinitely beautiful “Reliquary of St. Ursula,” executed about the middle of the fifteenth century for the Hospital of St. John, Bruges, represents the apex of his ability as a miniaturist.
Another of the early Flemish painters was Quentin Metsys (1466-1530)—a blacksmith by trade, who became a painter because the stern father of the maiden he adored refused to give her hand to any but an artist. To the surprise of the art-loving old city of Antwerp, Metsys achieved such mastery with the brush that, after several years of persevering effort, he was hailed as the best Flemish painter of his century.
The prince of the “Golden Age of Art” in Flanders was Petrus Paulus Rubens, who was born in the year 1577. While a student in Italy, a reigning Italian duke sent him on a mission to the King of Spain. The passport he was instructed to present to Philip III. introduced him as “Peter Paul, a Fleming, who will say all that is proper, like the well-informed man that he is. Peter Paul is very successful in painting portraits. If any ladies of quality wish their pictures, let them take advantage of his presence.” Wherever the young artist traveled—to Italy, to Spain, to France, to England, he was received with honors. Rubens was twice married, and his two wives and their children were often his models. He loved to paint sumptuous flesh and rosy faces, richly dressed children, cavaliers, gods and goddesses; and he delighted to make designs for the tapestries of Brussels and Arras. One of the pictures by which he is best remembered is the divine group, “The Descent from the Cross,” which has lately been restored to its place in the Antwerp Cathedral, after a period of over four years’ seclusion, safe from the enemy’s hands. So sure was the painter’s skill and so great his vogue that he became very rich and lived in a splendid house filled with rare objects of art. Many of his largest canvases were painted by pupils under his supervision. In all, he painted, or supervised, nearly two thousand pictures, some of them of huge dimensions. When he died in 1640 he was buried with great pomp in Antwerp, which proudly calls itself, “Rubens’s City.”