In the church of the Holy Saviour,[4] the grand organ presents another example of this gorgeous carving; and in the little chapel of St. Sang, which is possessed of a few drops of the genuine blood of our Saviour, periodically exhibited in its jewelled shrine to the faithful, there is a pulpit, perhaps, of better workmanship than taste, the shell of which represents the terrestrial globe, (orbis veteribus cognita), with a delineation of those geographical outlines which were known at the period of its erection.
In works of art, the burghers of Bruges seem to have been generous as well as ambitious in adorning their city, so long as its municipal affluence placed it within their power to gratify their tastes. The churches, are, therefore, rich in works of the early Flemish school—the Van Eycks and Hans Hemling, and Pourbus and their collaborators and successors: but at the period when the new Flemish school had arisen, with Otto Vennius, and attained its eminence under Rubens and Vandyk, Bruges had already suffered her decline, the sun of her prosperity had gone down, and she possesses no works of their pencil. The chief depositaries of paintings in the city, are the church of St. Sauveur, the chapel of the Hospital of St. John, and the Gallery of the Museum near the Quai du Miroir. The three collections present precisely the same array of names, and the same features of art, insipid and passionless faces, figures harsh and incorrect in drawing, finished with that elaborate care which seems to have been at all times the characteristic of the schools of both Flanders and Holland, and gaudy, inharmonious colours, upon a brilliant and generally gilded ground, in the Byzantine style. Except as mere antiquities, these pictures have but little interest to any except the mere historian of the art. The collection in St. Saveur I did not see, as it had been removed in consequence of a recent fire, but it seems from the lists to be rather extensive.
That in the Museum is numerous, but monotonous and tiresome, for the reasons I have mentioned, though Sir Joshua Reynolds speaks with high approbation of some beauties, I presume, it requires the eye of an artist to discern them. The gallery here contains, also, a statue, by Calloigne, a native artist, of John Van Eyck, the painter, called “John of Bruges,” to whom has been ascribed the invention of painting in oil. His claim to the discovery is, of course, incorrect, as the mummy cases of Egypt sufficiently attest, but his merit as one of those, who, earliest and most successfully applied it to the purposes of art, is sufficiently indicated by a glance at his pictures, and their comparison with the inferior productions of his contemporaries in Italy.
But the principal exhibition of the old masters of Bruges, is in the parlour of the chapel at the ancient Hospital of Saint John. Here the pride of the custodian are the chef-d’œuvres of Hans Memling. Hemling was a soldier and a roué, a prodigal and a genius utterly unconscious of his power. He ended a career of excesses by enlisting in one of the military companies of Bruges, his native city, and from the battle of Nancy, whither he had followed Charles the Rash, in 1477, he was carried, wounded and dying, to the Hospital of St. John. The skill of the leeches triumphed, however, and Hans was restored to strength and vigour, when, for want, perhaps, of some other asylum, he spent ten years of his subsequent life amongst his friends in the hospital, and enriched its halls with the choicest specimens of his art. These pictures are of marvellous brilliancy, although it is said, that Hemling rejected the use of oil, which had been introduced by his contemporary and rival, Van Eyck, and adhered to the old plan of tempering his colours with size and albumen. The artist, too, has introduced into them portraits of the nuns and sisters of charity, who were the attendants of the sick in the hospital—a delicate and yet lasting memorial of his gratitude for their kindnesses towards himself.
Amongst a number of portraits and scriptural subjects, the gem of the collection is a little, old-fashioned cabinet, probably intended for the reception of relics, some three feet long and broad in proportion, covered with a conical lid, and the whole divided into pannels, each containing a scene from the legend of St. Ursula, and the massacre of herself and her eleven thousand virgins, by the Goths, at Cologne. This curious little antique is so highly prized, that it is shown under a glass cover, and the directors of the hospital refused to exchange it for a coffer of the same dimensions in solid silver. The execution of the paintings has all the characteristic faults and beauties of its author, only the former are less glaring from the small dimensions of the figures. The faces of the ladies exhibit a good perception of female beauty, and St. Ursula herself has her hair plaited into braids and drawn behind her ear, much in the fashion of the present time in England.
The majority of the other pictures have the folding doors which were peculiar to all the painters of the Low Countries, till Rubens latterly dispensed with the use, though they are to be seen on his matchless “Descent from the Cross,” and some others of his pictures in the cathedral at Antwerp. They served to close up the main composition when folded across it; and as they are, themselves, painted on both sides, so as to exhibit a picture whether closed or open, they had the effect of producing five compartments all referring to the same subject, but of which the four outward ones are, of course, subsidiary to the grand design within.
The hospital in which these pictures are exhibited, is one of the best conducted establishments of the kind I have ever seen. Its attendants, in their religious costume, and with their nun’s head-dresses, move about it with the quiet benevolence which accords with their name, as “sisters of charity,” and the lofty wards, with the white linen of the beds, present in every particular an example of the most accurate neatness and cleanliness.
Both it and the churches I have named, stand close by the station of the railway by which the traveller arrives from Ghent or from Ostend. Besides their curious old paintings, the churches have little else remarkable; they are chiefly built of brick, and make no very imposing appearance. That of the St. Sauveur, contains a statue in marble attributed to Michael Angelo, and though not of sufficient merit to justify the supposition, is in all probability the work of one of his pupils. The story says, that it was destined for Genoa, but being intercepted on its passage by a Dutch privateer, was carried to Amsterdam, where it was purchased by a merchant of Bruges, and presented to his native city.
But the chief object of interest, and, indeed, the grand lion of Bruges, is the tomb of Mary of Burgundy in a little chapel of the same cathedral. The memory of this amiable Princess, and her early fate are associated with the most ardent feelings of the Flemings; she was the last of their native sovereigns, and at her decease, their principality became swallowed up in the overgrown dominion of the houses of Austria; like Charlotte of England, she was snatched from them in the first bloom of youth, she died before she was twenty-five, in consequence of a fall from her horse when hawking, and the independance of her country expired with her. Beside her, and in a similar tomb, repose the ashes of her bold and impetuous father, Charles the Rash, which was constructed by order of Philip of Spain. The chapel in which both monuments are placed, was prepared for their reception at the cost of Napoleon, who, when he visited Belgium, with Maria Louisa, in 1810, left a sum of money to defray the expense of their removal. Both tombs are of the same model, two rich sarcophagi, composed of very dark stone, ornamented with enamelled shields, and surmounted by recumbent statues, in gilded bronze, of the fiery parent and his gentle daughter. The blazonry of arms upon the innumerable shields which decorate their monuments, and the long array of titles which they record, bespeak the large domains, which, by successive alliances, had been concentrated in the powerful house of Burgundy. The inscription above the ashes of Charles the Rash, is as follows:
CY GIST TRES HAVLT TRES PVISSANT ET MAGNANIME PRINCE CHARLES DVC DE BOVRGne DE LOTHRYCKE DE BRABANT DE LEMBOVRG DE LVXEMBOVRG ET DE GVELDRES CONTE DE FLANDRES D’ARTOIS DE BOVRGne PALATIN ET DE HAINAV DE HOLLANDE DE ZEELANDE DE NAMVR ET DE ZVTPHEN MARQVIS DV SAINCT EMPIRE SEIGNEUR DE FRISE DE SALINS ET DE MALINES, LEQVEL ESTANT GRANDEMENT DOVÉ DE FORCE CONSTANCE ET MAGNANIMITÉ PROSPERA LONGTEMPS EN HAVLTES ENTREPRINSES BATAILLES ET VICTOIRES TANT A MONTLHERI EN NORMANDIE EN ARTHOIS EN LIEGE QVE AVLTREPART JVSQVES A CE QVE FORTVNE LVI TOVRNANT LE DOZ LOPPRESSA LA NVICT DES ROYS, 1476 DEVANT NANCY FVT DEPVIS PAR LE TRES HAVT TRES PVISSANT ET TRES VICTORIEVX PRINCE CHARLES EMPEREUR DES ROMAINS Vmc DE CE NOM SON PETIT NEPHEV HERITIER DE SON NOM VICTOIRES ET SEIGNORIES TRANSPORTE A BRVGES OV LE ROI PHILIPPE DE CASTILLE LEON ARRAGON NAVARE ETC. FILS DUDICT EMPEREVR CHARLES LA FAICT METTRE EN CE TOMBEAU DU COTÉ DE SA FILLE ET VNIQVE HERITIERE MARIE FEMME ET ESPEVSE DE TRES HAVLT ET TRES PVISSANT PRINCE MAXIMILIEN ARCHIDVC D’AVSTRICE DEPVIS ROI EMPEREVR DES ROMANS—PRIONS DIEV POVR SON AME.—AMEN.