Although Memlinc founded no school, the masters of his day and others who settled in Bruges in the sixteenth century were to a very appreciable extent influenced by his art. Gerard David, Albert Cornelis, Peter Pourbus, and the Claeissens all felt its impress, and if the traditions of the old school survived in Bruges to a later period than in other centres, and well into the seventeenth century, it was mainly through the instrumentality of these painters. In contrasting the lives of mediæval and modern artists one cannot escape a feeling of regret that the former should so utterly have neglected the literary side of their calling. What a revelation to us would have been the discovery of the personal recollections of but one of these great masters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and what a world of trouble they would have saved the art students of after generations! But seemingly the demand for this class of literature had not then arisen, while the craving for notoriety which would have compelled an effort of this description was altogether foreign to the single-minded nature of a school whose art was to its exponents something more than the realisation of worldly ambition or the satisfaction of a vulgar lust of gain. There could have been no hankering after either in the type of man revealed to us by the lifework of Memlinc. And so it was that with the reawakened interest in mediæval painting which made itself manifest in the nineteenth century the services of the archæologist had to be requisitioned. Difficult indeed would it be to exaggerate the immensity of the task imposed upon him. The sifting from the mass of popular fiction which had gathered round Memlinc’s name the few grains of truth embedded in it, the ceaseless delving among municipal and ecclesiastical archives for a chance record of some incident in his career, the slow process of authenticating the genuine from the ruck of doubtful and spurious works associated with his name, half a century of unswerving devotion to the task has not yet brought us within measurable reach of its accomplishment. Every day, so to speak, brings to light some new fact, often compelling a revision of conclusions which in its absence were sufficiently justified.
PLATE VIII.—OUR LADY AND CHILD, SAINT GEORGE AND THE DONOR.
This painting, formerly in the Gierling collection, was purchased by Mr J. P. Weyer of Cöln for 450 thalers, and at the sale of his pictures in 1862, by Mr O. Mündler for 4600 thalers for the National Gallery.
Thus it happened that the identification of the donors of the “Last Judgment” at Danzig, in 1902, led to the recognition of this earliest example of Memlinc’s art. And so no doubt will it happen again, each fresh discovery amplifying the knowledge necessary to remove doubt as to the authenticity of attributed works. But even so, what an advance from half a century since, when the personality of the painter was but the sport of idle legend, and loomed vaguely on the horizon in the distorted outlines of a loathsome caricature! If dearth of information is a powerful incentive to the imagination, then the evolution of the Memlinc legend goes far to establish its potency. An obscure seventeenth-century tradition had it that Memlinc painted a picture for the Hospital of Saint John in grateful recognition of services rendered to him by the Brethren of that charitable foundation: from which indeterminate report grew a tale of a dissolute soldier of fortune spared from the shambles of the field of Nancy dragging his wounded and diseased body to the Hospital gates, and beguiling the weary hours of a long convalescence there in the production of a masterpiece of painting in token of his gratitude. As an unconnected story for the amusement of simple-minded folk the fable is not without merit of a sort, but what a libel on the Christian artist who transcends all the painters of his age in the interpretation of deep religious feeling, and the shaping of whose whole life must have been a novitiate to this end! We have travelled a long road since the days when this preposterous legend was exploded. True, the exhumation of Memlinc’s individuality from the burial-ground of lost memories has been a slow and arduous process; but the rich store of knowledge now at our command is an abundant testimony to the patience of the experts who have garnered it.
It is not given to us to be all swayed in the same way or to the same extent by Art in any of its forms; but few who have been led to contemplate the masterpieces of the Netherlandish school will fail to pay the tribute of admiration these wonderworks evoke, and bear testimony to their educational value. For Hans Memlinc it is not claimed that he surpassed in each department of his art all the other painters who helped to build up the fame of the Netherlandish school: in some material respects his methods differed widely from theirs, and he elaborated a technique distinctly his own. It is not likely to be imputed that his sedulous avoidance of the marked contrasts of light and shade was a confession of inability to realise their treatment, though possibly he may be thought by some to have weakly followed the line of least resistance. Of course, Memlinc, like every other great artist of his age, had his limitations. His knowledge of anatomy naturally was not equal to the exact requirements of science, the pose of his figures not absolutely conformable to the ideals of the dilettante in respect of grace of carriage or correctness of deportment. Though critics contrast the simplicity of his art with the grandeur of style of Van Eyck, commonly with some predilection for the latter, yet it is possible for one to be subjugated by it and still feel to the full the fascination of the tender beauty inherent in the former. In his conceptions of the great mysteries of the Christian faith, in the characterisation of the many saints he portrayed, and above all in his varied presentation of womanhood he certainly excelled. In the “Last Judgment” at Danzig we have probably the least successful of his great efforts. The conception is not original, though admittedly one of the finest produced up to that time; also it is his earliest extant work, and in the style of a master from whose controlling influence he had not yet emancipated himself. But the fault lies rather with the subject. Many an artist has laboured at it, not always perhaps from choice; but the painter has yet to be born who will produce a convincing picture of that unrealised tragedy. Any attempt that falls short of conveying to the mind and soul of man the awe-full warning it should express necessarily bears the stamp of failure; and when, as too often is the case, it but provokes a smile by reason of its incongruity, the effort it cost stands unjustified. Not that Memlinc’s conception errs conspicuously in this sense: but it lacks conviction, and not all the beautiful work it exhibits can close our eyes to the fact.
To the up-to-date art critic of the weekly press, steeped in modernity, all this grand religious art of the middle ages is but as the dead ashes of a fire that once glowed but has now lost its warmth; or, to vary the simile, he contemptuously relegates it to the scrap-heap of antiquated material as the useless remains of a “dead language”; little bethinking himself of the great underlying truth he was unconsciously voicing. For just as all succeeding literatures found their spring and inspiration in the magnificent literatures enshrined in the great dead languages of Rome and Greece, so likewise has modern art, unconsciously if you will, but none the less assuredly, derived the essence of its loveliness from the mediæval art it affects to despise. Art of any kind to be great must have realised its greatness through the vivifying power of the art that had gone before. Ex nihilo nihil fit. The impellent craving after realism of the materialistic school of to-day is but a perverted form of the love of truth which was the keynote of all mediæval art, its cult of the sensuous but a depraved phase of a love of the beauty in virtue and godliness which characterised the latter: the great touch of faith is wholly wanting. In art as in all things human there is no finality; but the while Bruges subsists, though she were utterly bereft of all her picturesqueness and the wealth of architectural beauty that endears her to the artist mind, so long will that treasure-house of Memlinc’s art, the small chapter-room in the Hospital of Saint John, continue to exercise its educating influence, and so long, because of it, will the old Flemish capital, though shorn of all its pristine glory, continue to be one of the most cherished shrines of the art pilgrims of the world.
The plates are printed by Bemrose & Sons, Ltd., Derby and London
The text at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh