UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES SOUTHERN BRANCH, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES, CAUF. w THE ART GALLERIES OF EUROPE |ooo THE NATIONAL GALLERY LONDON THE FLEMISH SCHOOL PORTRAIT OF CHJ ng by Van l>\ THE NATIONAL GALLERY- LONDON THE FLEMISH SCHOOL '-■1 DO Z ' , ... » . ■ - ■ ■ ■ ■, LONDON • GEORGE NEWNE5 ■ LIMITED- SOUTHAMPTON STREET • STRAND-WC NEW YORK- FREDK.-WARNE <5 CO-36 EAST22"^5T ► • • : : ' :-. ; :^:/;y:C;: : •: •*: • • .«. The Ballantyne Press Tavistock St. London CONTENTS The Flemish School. By Frederick Wcdmore i.\ A List of Painters of the Flemish School and their Pictures at the National Gallery, London . . . . . . . . . . . xxi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Equestrian Portrait of Charles I , by Sir Anthony van Dyck . Paee Piatt Jan van Eyck A Man's Portrait ........... i Portraits of Jean Arnolfini and Jeanne de Chen my, his wife . 11 A Man's Portrait m ROGIER VAX DEK WeYDEN The Deposition in the Tomb ........ iv The Magdalen . . ..... . . v Joachim Patinir A Nun vi Petri's Cristus Portrait of a Young M an \n Dierick Bouts The Virgin and Child vni H ins Memlinc The Virgin and Infant Christ Enthroned in a Garden ... i\ (Ascribed to) St. John the Baptist and St. Lawrence. Deacon . . X < '. hi ERAERT David The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine . . . ... \i A Canon and his Patron Saints ........ XII Quin i EN Mai sys Salvator Mundi and the Virgin Mary ..... . xm Go - \ i ■ i Jan A Man's Portrait XIV Barent VAN ( )KI I 5 The Magdalene reading • w Bartholom vus Bruyn Poi trail of a Man xvi MARIN1 - VAN Komi RSVt \i i Two Bankers or U arers in their Office ...... xvn h Z tO ^ THE NATIONAL GALLERY— FLEMISH SCHOOL Antony Mor Portrait of a Man Nicolas Lucidel Portrait of a Young German Lady Pieter Neeffs Interior of a Church Peter Pail Rubins The Judgment of Paris The Triumph of Julius Caesar A Landscape with a View of the Chateau de Stein Portrait of Susanne Fourment, known as the " Chapeau de Paille Peace and War Triumph of Silenus ......... A Holy Family with St. George and other Saints The Horrors of War ......... The Brazen Serpent ......... The Abduction of the Sabine Women A Landscape, Sunset ......... The Conversion of St. Bavon ....... Frans Snvders A Fruit piece David Teniers, the elder Playing at Bowls Rocky Landscape .......... The Conversation ... ...... Sir Anthony van Dyck Portrait of an Artist A Study of Horses His own Portrait . The Emperor Theodosius refused Admission into the Church by St. Ambrose ..... The Miraculous Draught of Fishes Portrait of Cornelius van der Geest David Teniers, the younger The Village Fete .... Players at Tric-Trac, or Backgammon A Music Party An ( )ld Woman peeling a Pear The Chateau of Teniers at Perck The Surprise . . . The Misers or Money-Changers vi Plate XYIII .MX XX XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XX Y XXVI NXVII XXVIII XXIX XXX XXXI XXXII xxxii r XXXIV XXXV xxxvi WXVII XXXVIII XXXIX XL XI.I XLII XLIII XLIV XLV XI. VI XLYI1 XI. \ III XI. IX THE NATIONAL GALLERY— FLEMISH SCHOOL Plate Jan Fvt Dead Birds Gonzales Cooues A Family Group Portrait of a Lady . Sight .... Hearing .... Taste .... Matih.i rs Merian Portrait of a Man . Jacob Hlvsman Portrait of Izaak Walton 1 IK IKS Flemish School of the XV. and XVI. Cen The Adoration of the Kings . Portrait of a Man . The Deposition from the Cr< s> Portrait of a Monk The Madonna and Infant Christ . The Madonna and Child Enthroned The Exhumation of St. Hubert, Bishop of Liege A Lady as Mary Magdalene .... i.i i.i i i. in i.i\ i \ I VI LVI1 I A III I I\ I.\ LXI LXII LXIII I \l\ LXV " ;: Note. Plates vn., vill. and XVL, though exhibited in the National Gallery, are not the property of the nation, but are lent from the collection of George Salting, Esq, \n THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON THE FLEMISH SCHOOL BY FREDERICK WEDMORE - --• 3 HE School of Flanders — which, I must begin by assert- ing, found its most important expression in the genius of Rubens — s (unlike the neighbouring School of Germany) represented in our National Gallery with sufficient symmetry and abundance to make it the eminently worthy subject of main* hours' study. The representation of it, in Trafalgar Square, is almost on an equality with the representation of (lie Dutch. That it is vastly in excess of the representation of German Art, is due in ^reat measure to the rarity of Old German Painting, and to the pompous insicnihcar.ee of most of that which is New. German Art, it must be remembered — the great German Art, of the Renaissance— was, notwithstanding the triumphs, on panel, of Diirer, Altdorfer, Holbein, essentially the Art of the Line Engraver. Colour was not characteristic of it. Charm of brush-work was not characteristic of it. So that apart from scanty master-pieces of Painting it is to Drawings, and yet more to Original Prints, thai we are glad to have recourse, when we would essay to gauge the extent and the profundity oi Durer's imagination, or would linger in admiration over the firmness and exquisiteness of hi- hand. The Black and White of the Original Engraver makes manifest Aldegrever's genius in Ornament: and by their Prints the soul of the Behams and of Jacob Binck is revealed. The superiority of the representation of Flemish Ait, over that oi the Ait of France, is due to quite other causes. Accidenl counts perhaps for .1 hull-. What counts lor much more is (lie indifference oi successive Directors, to thai Ari which, since it has been emancipated, since it has been truly itself, has succeeded, speaking generally, in leading the world. ix THE NATIONAL GALLERY— FLEMISH SCHOOL I refer, of course, not to the gravest Art of Poussin or the sunniest of Claude — produced whilst great Italians were yet in some degree point- ing the way — but to that of the men of the Eighteenth Century -Watteau, Boucher, Chardin. Fragonard— and, again, of the Nine- teenth Century — Ingres, Rousseau, Dupre, Diaz, Boudin, Fantin, Puvis de Chavannes. And yet a third thing counts a little among the causes of the better representation of the Art of Flanders. French Art, to some extent — though to a less extent than that of Germany — is Art for the Engraver. Flemish Art, on the contrary, gains nothing by the existence ,of burin or needle — is the art, essentially, of the brush and the palette. ; Certainlv, Rubens was well engraved. Of him, that is to say, as of one or two of his lesser brethren, translations, learned, forcible, and dexterous, were executed upon copper by Vosterman and the Bolswerts. But where are even these men altogether successful in rendering his spirit ? Chiefly, I think, in his figure-pieces. It was reserved for another Centurv than theirs, and for another country — it was reserved for England — to perfect Interpretative Engraving in Landscape ; and as for Original work, Rubens, wielding no needle, no more gives us in black and white the equivalent for the Etchings of Claude, than he gives us the equivalent for the Etchings of Rembrandt. No, the Art of Flanders is, all of it, practically, for gallery walls ; whilst much of the Art of Germany, Holland, and France is for your home, and for your Solander-box even — if you are wise enough to have one. So much for comparisons of that sort. Now, to our particular purpose. The Art of Flanders is the Art of a district active, important, not very extensive. And it is the art of how long a time — of how many, or how few generations ? In or about Thirteen hundred and ninety, was born the great Jan Van Eyck — some years earlier having been born, it is believed, Hubert, his brother, of whose work we have, in public galleries of England, no example. Little more than two centuries after their arrival, was born the last of the great Flemings, Antony Vandyke. He saw the light in 1599. And that shows the utmost stretch of the School. Times there have been, evidently, when the passage of two hundred years would not have meant either violent or extremely perceptible transition. With such times the Art of Flanders had nothing to do. It was Mediaeval with the Van Eycks : it was still Mediaeval with Memling. But the full Renaissance had passed over it long before the time when Vandyke was gone — and Rubens. Roughly, the two centuries during which Flemish Art was important represent two phases, of absolutely different general character. And the two centuries — or the two phases, if you like — are dominated, each of them, by two great personalities. The Mediaeval phase, the phase of simple belief, and of unique preoccupation with a world not ours, was dominated by Jan Van Eyck and by Hans Memling. Exquisitely they expressed their creed and their pursuit. The full Renaissance THE NATIONAL GALLERY— FLEMISH SCHOOL phase — the phase of emancipation — the phase in which is recognised completely the importance of a world that is ours very much — is dominated by Rubens and Vandyke. ( Hut, by their time, the Art has greatly swollen, and the conception of Life has caused it to swell, and no two men— not even two of whom one wis the giant Rubens — could represent thoroughly the range of that enlarged, emancipated Art. With Jan Van Eyck and Memling, I might have associated Hubert Van Eyck, Mabuse, Patinir, Quentin Matsys, as painters whom to nam'' is to show indeed a certain modest increase in the ground covered ; but what is that increase in comparison with the increase forced on our notice when, along with Rubens and Vandyke, there are named personalities as various as those of Antonio More and Pieter Neefs, Teniers, and Snyders, Jan Fyt, Gonzales Coques ? It is a new world that has opened — so vast j-o^u® a world that even Rubens and Vandyke are not enough to express it.) -"'^ And yet Vandyke and Rubens — as perhaps even the beginner in Art Study hardly needs to be reminded — were, neither of them, simply portrait painters. More than that, they were neither of them simply secular painters. The world around it hem was indeed their affair ; • but of an impressive Past and of a mysterious Future, both took count. An ancient Faith., not occupying them wholly, did colour at times their thoughts. Traditions were theirs. Indeed, as representing the traditions of the Past, as well as the revelation of the Present, they were more convinced and more convincing, more gifted, more effectual, than their narrower contemporaries — specialists altogether — browsing for ever upon the limited roods and perches of the- sward towards which their heads were inevitably turned. More convincing than their contemporaries — not more convincing after all. than the earliest Masters of their Flemish School — than the Van Eycks, a sight of whose Triumph of the Lamb, at Ghent, stirred the young pulses of the only great Religious painter France has had during the Nineteenth Century — Hippolyte Flandin. Not to London, however, must men come, to be made aware of the sincerity of the Van Eycks' emotion — of the depth of their pious confidence — of their possession of a greater unction than any that belonged to Rubens or his pupils— of their possession of a sincerity more profound; though the sincerity ot Rubens and Vandyke I do not question. As far as Jan van Eyck is concerned, London holds but the evidence of his sterling colour, and of his penetrating observation, and his learned,, precise draughtsmanship, of the faces of men. He lived only into middle age, and all our London pictures and the " all " are finished when we have taken note of three are pieces of his later time : they are » achievements of his last decade. To 1432 belongs that naively unflattering record of a man with the frank ugliness of certain pugs — our Portrait of a Man. Inscribed on a stone parapet, below the bust, is, in Greek characters, ti/xo Qsoq, and, afterwards, 'Leal Souvenir." Perhaps the lines of the mouth are laid upon the panel with a yet more XI THE NATIONAL GALLERY— FLEMISH SCHOOL absolute certainty in another Man's Portrait, dated 1433 ; but that work as a whole is not quite so individual — at all events not quite so appealing. We have not reproduced it. To the year 1434 belongs the third, last piece by a craftsman whose skill of hand, wherever he wrought, was like a fine jeweller's— this is the portrait group, Flemish Merchant and Lady ; otherwise the portraits of one John Arnolfmi, of Lucca, it is said, and his wife. Don Diago de Guavara gave it to Margaret of Austria, and a later Royal lady, then Regent of the Netherlands, granted a certain barber-surgeon an office worth a hundred florins a year that it might return from out of the obscure hands into which it had somehow descended. And if the Van Eycks have to be sought at Ghent, we must remember that at Bruges — on the famous " Chasse de Ste. Ursule ' -is to be encountered the very perfection of Memling. But the spirit that dictated that performance of his, though not altogether the extreme daintiness of its skill, is to be seen in our panel : The Virgin and Child enthroned in a Garden : a composition symmetrical, not to say stately, and showing- something of the " cheerful tenderness " to which lie inclined. Beyond the garden, there is Landscape. But the landscape has not the peculiar charm of the landscape of one Flemish painter, born, it is tolerably certain, a generation after Memling — I mean Joachim Patinir, some of the best of whose rare pictures have long been in Madrid. Patinir was born at Dinant. It was not until 1515, when he must have been Hearing middle life, that he became a master of the Corporation of St. Luke at Antwerp ; where, six years afterwards, Albert Diirer, visiting Antwerp, painted his portrait, and " assisted ' — the word is not Albert Durer's — "assisted" at his second marriage. And the great Albert, in the Diary of his Journey in the Low Countries, speaks of this man as " Joachim, the good landscape painter." As much with him as with Altdorfer, Landscape charm seems to have been the motive of work endowed with piety, and — at least in Patinir's case — endowed also with grace. The Wynn Ellis bequest, to which we owe its possession, contained little of more delicate quality than the highly-wrought jewel entitled A Nun. It shows in the fore- ground, St. Agnes — a young nun, entirely delightful — in adoration of the Child held forward on the lap of its Mother ; and behind there is the landscape that shares the interest, at least — a village and a river, and a blue hill-distance, of the kind Patinir loved. Mabuse — Jean de Mabuse, in other words — a little tiresomely cata- logued in our National Gallery by that which was his name, undoubtedly, [an Gossart— is represented by two pictures, neither of which fails altogether to present at least his character as a realist — his rather terre- a-terre fidelity to fact. Steady brilliance of execution — or, at the least, steady completeness — is evidenced by his Portrait of a Man in Black ; and in the placing of the single figure, a half-length, against its back- ground of the curves and angles of a panelled wall — for the model is in a xii THE NATIONAL GALLERY— FLEMISH SCHOOL Renaissance Church, it would appear, and a rosary hangs from his fingers — some sense of composition is witnessed to, that is as mneli his own as his fidelity to matter and the " Daylight freshness" of his illumination. By the time that we an' with, him we have come tar along t'ae road that Leads us towards the freer realism and the larger grace. We find these things in Rubens ; horn hut a single generation after Mabuse died. '* Find them '" — in Rubens ! Why, as far as his own land is concerned, Rubens was their inventor. He made possible the use of such terms as I have employed. His work gave such terms their meaning. Through four channels the abounding genius of this Flemish Master found expression — Religious Pieces, Mythological Pieces. Portraiture. Landscape. Nay, even that artificial order of work which used to be entitled " Historical "--because it dealt with a real Past which yet the painter could not by any possibility know — was still a fifth channel. To my own mind the noblest religious piece that Rubens ewer painted — certainly the religious piece most charged with that majesty of carriage and that suavity of beauty that was his — is a picture that is the ornament of thai "hapel in the Cathedral of Antwerp in which his dust lies buried. There is unction in it too, and there is tenderness, and there is the born colourist's most fragrant charm. In Antwerp, naturally, his religious canvases abound. St. Jacques and the Museum, as well as the Cathedral, have been the recipients of those instances which are accounted the highest. His Mythology is everywhere — nowhere more gloriously than a1 Madrid — and in Paris, in that recent, addition to the Louvre in which it is so Splendidly lodged, hangs the longest, most elaborate chronicle, a chronicle fired by imagination, that is History made decorative. I speak, of course, of the score of canvases on which, working on a founda- tion supplied by his pupils, the vivifying touch of Rubens gave seeming truth to the embellished record of Marie de Medici's days. Great he is at Munich, great at St. Petersburg, great again at Vienna. Yet in London we are not unfortunate. For here, tant Men que mal, "History" is represented by the Abduction of the Sabine Women — a magnificent motive at least for a brush that revelled in the representation of the turmoil of struggle, that revelled in the expression of energy in the visible embodiment of human will power. No one else in the world could have realised as Rubens did, the fury <>f the assault, the animal agony of the defence. So human it is in its portrayal for some, too. there are whose denials are perfunctory, whose resistance is but formal and mild, who ask to be conquered. Peace and War displays, and yet again The Judgment of Paris displays, the fleshy magnificence of Rubens's full-blown type. It is not the ideal of our Age which, as much almost as the Greek, demands and appreciates physical refinement - which, much more than the Creek, asks that there shall be written somewhere on the flesh a little record, though it maybebul an enigmatical or an elusive one, of the soul's present e, of the soul's chastening adventures. Put at Leasl it is a possible ideal— an ideal not incompatible with a life xiii THE NATIONAL GALLERY— FLEMISH SCHOOL masculine and strenuous. Frankly carnal : nothing worse. Nor always frankly carnal alone, after all. For in the Horrors of War there is a blonde figure, of beauty pure and sad. Into that flesh at least — as " pretty a piece of flesh as any in Messina," Shakspeare's phrase — the soul has entered and stayed. But perhaps to the student who has ransacked galleries, it is one portrait and one landscape that most commend themselves, among the work of Rubens in central London, as unique things. The portrait is so famous, so well known, that it requires to-day some boldness to talk of it. Yet I must refer the reader to the Chapeau de Poil (the Chapeau de Paille, it has been called absurdly, in the by no means remote Past)— the young woman with the hat whose broad line has great curves in it ; whose plumes have such dexterous twistings. Under the hat are the face and the high bust of the deep, ripe, sunny blonde ; a young woman arrayed in noble red and olive brown ; the fairness of her flesh beheld against blue sky just touched with grey. She is a lady of the upper bourgeoisie : Susanne Fourment, a frequent model for Rubens — the young sister of Rubens's second wife. What charms is not so much the fair young person — though she is a quantite negligeahle by no means — but the breadth and lustrousness of the picture ; its keen illumination and full colour. Sheer power is in The Triumph of Sileniis. But. in that sheer power there is nothing unique ; for among Rubens's characteristics do we know of any that is more marked ? I said the second picture was a landscape. It is A Landscape : Autumn : with a View of the Chateau de Stein. It was given to the National Gallery by Sir George Beaumont ; and it will not seem so unique, in character, perhaps, when I record that it is one of four pictures of the Seasons, of which two are at Windsor and another at Hertford House. But as, with Humanity, the taste and temperament of Rubens often inclined him to a love of the latest Summer or the earliest Autumn of Life, so with Landscape, his nature and personality, for which the immature had no charm, craved for fruition and not promise- asked for, and would take no denial of, the complex and the affluent : wanted, not simplicity, but pomp and elaboration. Turner, the greatest lover, since Rubens himself, of intricate; involved line in country distances —of a baffling multiplicity of objects in the stretched champaign- has nowhere followed with so strong a hand as Rubens, here in Autumn. the mazy windings of Landscape. The time is morning ; and. as for the reason, golden already is the picturesque foliage. And the ordinary human life is led in front of this stately decor. Alike for figure of pros- perous lord and of toiling peasant, this magnificence is the frame. The place of Rubens is, amongst Flemish painters, so incomparably the most eminent, that to be certain that the spell he weaves is not too strong, one has, as I consider, in thought, to turn, not to his blemish pre- decessors — men as much unlike him in the extent as in the character of their talent, of their genius even : for patient genius the best of the early men xiv THE NATIONAL GALLERY— FLEMISH SCHOOL assuredly possessed — one has, I say, to turn, not to them at all, but to a Dutchman of Rubens' s day, the greatest Dutchman of all days- Rembrandt. Then it is that one perceives Rubens's deficiencies and limitations, along with his strength. Nature, with Rubens — the soul of Nature at least, whether disclosed by Landscape or Humanity — is never serre de pres! With a deep Nature, this giant of the brush, abandoned to the passion for material things, is not in touch, genuinely. He visits — in the garden of our Earth the flowers and the splendours, and he passes on. Rembrandt, meantime — his outward experiences sordid and small in comparison with those of the stately citizen of Antwerp, and of the world — has penetrated to the heart of things : has been the poet of the Jan Lutma, the psychologist of the Clement de Jonghe and of the Mere de Rembrandt au voile noir. I leave his painted works aside, though they, in our own National Gallery, are evidence enough. I take, for reference — for conclusive reference — but these three simple Etchings. Little use is it, however, to ask that there be shown in one great man the pre-eminent qualities of another. Each must be precious tor his own. Yet it is only by understanding the qualities of his peers, that we can understand Rubens himself. Before we note the stately and sufficient presence of Vandyke in Trafalgar Square, let us note the absence — the practical absence, that is — of an artist who, while not the direct pupil, was substantially the follower of Rubens — I mean Jordaens. If the mantle of Rubens, falling from him like Elijah's, had to be assigned to somebody who should most fittingly wear it, I am not sure at all that any single Elisha would satisfactorily present himself. Vandyke would have a claim; but so would Jordaens — in the end, the splendours of the mantle would be assigned to the Court Painter, and something of its warmth and service- ableness made over to Jordaens, who, most of all. inherited Rubens's boisterou> and hearty joy in living. The portrait of one grave, austere man, with wedge-shaped countenance, narrow grey eyes, and whitening beard. represents^ that side of Jordaens which, while eminently respectable, is least characteristic. To know him thoroughly, we must be — as we may be at Brussels — in presence of his presentations of a Bacchus and a Venus flushed and full. It was not perhaps Bacchus that he actually painted ; it was not perhaps Venus. But, as he painted, in his thoughts, assuredly — were it possible at all — were those nowadays discredited deities. Vandyke is so represented in our National Gallery, that he speaks elo- quently, albeil not quite comprehensively or exhaustively, for himself. Hardlv h ii necessary to insist on his general features: -till less upon particular works, in any detail. And yet irresistible is the temptation to eehotheeommon praise of one portrait bust, the Gevartius Gevartius was an intimate friend of Rubens -the Gevartius, as the canvas long was called. Not only the circumstance that it was supposed to be his comrade, lia. led men— some men at least— to hold that Rubens himself was the XV THE NATIONAL GALLERY— FLEMISH SCHOOL painter. But that it is Vandyke's indeed, is not now, I believe, seriously doubted ; and in the model— thanks to a print engraved by Paul Pontius — there has been recognised Cornelius Vander Geest. In comparison with this, the Portrait of an Artist — a being graceful of carriage, in leisurely communication with a listening friend, while a third person hurries up from behind — is superficial, entirely. But so, conceivably, was that artist's nature. Vandyke's own portrait — a much smaller piece, showing a man with bright young eyes, and wavy hair, and taper fingers — is a more penetrating, a more understanding study. But then it conies from the Peel Collection, and the Peel Collection, there is a pleasure in remembering, contained scarcely a picture that was second-rate. The Portrait of Charles the First — the benign monarch, with a firm seat upon a prancing Spanish steed — comes from Blenheim. It was acquired, as our well preserved but formal Raphael was acquired, at a high price — a price, however, at which it would not have been possible to refuse it ; so fin is it in its perception and workmanship : so great a chef-d'oeuvre of its kind. A hundred and fifty pounds was the sum paid for it when it was sold amongst the effects of the Crown, after the execution of the Sovereign it represents. But the prices of the Seven- teenth Century come back no more to us to-day than do the snows " of vester year." It will be noted that of the singular refinement of Vandyke's women's portraits, the National Gallery has no example. Henrietta Maria, who — mainly, though for dull official reasons — was with Vandyke as much as " Emma " was with Romney, is not here at all. And of the refined sensuousness, in ideal or imaginative work, of one whose tempera- ment subjected him especially to the influences of Italy, our Collection lias no example. At the National Gallery, no Magdalen and no Virgin testifies to Vandyke's sense of human comeliness. Great, then, not so much by variety as by quality, is Vandyke in Trafalgar Square. And not much less great than he is now, with half a dozen pictures, would he be if he were represented only by those two capital examples of his art — the Vander Geest and the Charles — on which I have insisted already. When we leave these masters of Flemish Painting — when we leave alike the early workers, patient and spiritual, Van Eyck and Memling, and these later magicians of the brush, Rubens and Vandyke, who were the affluent and delighted historians of the glories of this present world- it may be there is lack of interest, perhaps absolute distaste even, for the minor and more prosaic men. The descent is, nevertheless, gradual, the plunge not overwhelming, if, after Vandyke, we address ourselves to Sir Antonio More — a Fleming tinged more especially with the more masculine of Southern influence ; a servant of Charles the Fifth, a favourite in Spain, a traveller or sojourner in England, a deep student of Titian. In Lord Spencer's Collection, at Althorp, is an admirable portrait of himself ; during his English residence he was portrait painter to Queen xv i THE NATIONAL GALLERY— FLEMISH SCHOOL Mary; and, emancipated from the methods of his earlier Utrecht manner, his flesh-tints, as the National Gallery Catalogue rightly reminds ns. arc ' k warm, tempered by line greys." Again, and truly, that instructor says, " an unpretentious dignHy characterised his portraits," and " he developed a noble and sincere style." Of two supposed examples of Antonio More, in English National possession — the one attested and the other attributed : attributed with truth, as 1 should venture to believe it is the attributed, not the attested picture, which, as far at least as subject is concerned, is the more attractive ; but the picture that is given him with certainty is the one 1 shall reproduce, and it is in any case the one in which most clearly the restrained capacity of Flanders has blossomed out into the energy and impulse of the South. Having just praised the National Gallery Catalogue for the justice and measured accuracy of its appreciation of Antonio .More, it is permissible, and not discourteous, to take exception to what seems the almost ex- cessive laudation of the Fruit Painting of Snyders. In principle, we may agree entirely with the dictum that Snyders' comparatively few strong- strokes gave the characteristic surface of " each luscious product of the garden " far better than did the minute, laborious imitation of matter by thelesser men. Snyderswasof agreat School. His dead game and his lish attest it. Still more is it attested by his free painting of hounds and savage beasts — the things in which he most reminds us of his intimate association with Rubens. Tn the painting of Fruit, however, line, vigorous as he was. there was not in his breadth the subtlety of the breadth of Chardin. A Fruit piece by Snyders is a decoration, almost a pageant. Rut there is not in his performance the unobtrusive strength — then 4 is not on his canvas the velvety and all-enveloping atmosphere of Chardin. In one sense Chardin's contemporary — though a man old indeed while the great Frenchman was still young — another Fleming, of name greatly similar to his forerunner's, one Snyers (born in e68i and dying in i/5 2 )^ painted, most ably, Fruit and Flower pieces at a time when the Art of the Low Countries, like that of Italy, speaking generally, had languished, and when the Art that deserved to' be dominant was in Venice Guardi's, in England Hogarth's, in France the graceful spirited creations that had been fostered by the Court of Louis Quinze. Snyer's Study of Still Life — strawberries and peonies and plums and bundles of asparagus holds worthilyits place. So do the Dead Birdsoi .bin Fyt — thai strongly observant painter, and etcher too, of animals in life and death, who painted a full hundred years earlier that Snyers and owed perhaps the direction of his talent to Frans Snyders himself. A Teniers the younger, such as the Chateau of Tenters til Perck - with its luminous landscape and its hath of air— reproaches me for the greal effort with which alone I could whip myself into artificial enthusiasm oVer ili.it which oppresses me too much in the soulless capacity of these two Flemings, father and son. It is late in the day to say tli.it the second of the two men was the painter of the greater talenl perhaps, too, ol xvii THE NATIONAL GALLERY— FLEMISH SCHOOL the greater variety. There is something in his work, of course, that by its cleverness may attract- — there is something only too certainly that will repel. Only French Art could have made tolerable the very theme of The Surprise; in which the Flemish counterpart of that ancient satyr whose vices grow upon him, pitilessly, throughout the sordid pages of Balzac's Cousine Bette, is presented as detected, by an undesirable wife, in his vulgar approach to a not more desirable serving-woman. And yet, some of the younger Teniers' people have a vivacity, expressed with lightness; his perception is accurate; he knows quite thoroughly, in his own way, his business ; the execution of his work atones some- times, where there is need it should atone, for all that is unwelcome in it --and sometimes, we have seen, there is nothing to atone for : much, on the other hand, for which to receive credit. Certainly the National Gallery — furnished now amply with the works of father and of son- will never again have need to add to their representation. These men painted the lower life in all the life around them. Occasionallv something better. But " Otez-moi ces magots la ! '•" — the not unreasonable request of Louis le Grand — is the phrase that rises to one's mind, as one surveys, with like disgust, that population. Gonzales Coques is a refreshment after much of this painting. The carriage of his people is correct as well as natural : nothing starched about them, of course: theirs is the impulsiveness, as theirs the dignity, of pleasant temperaments. Such skill and management is the portraval of a group ! See the Family Group of our illustration — a thing executed on that which is somehow the most difficult of scales : a scale neither large nor small. The charm of the children, too ! — in the Art of the Low Countries it is only Jan Steen himself who has really surpassed it. And the little lady in a blue shawl and a red petticoat : with a triumphal arch in the back- ground — 1 am talking of Portrait of a Lady. Though not exactly of a " coming-on disposition," Gonzales Coques' characters all welcome yon in a frank and well-bred way. Again, in the pictures of the Five Senses how sympathetic the models — whether of Hearing or Taste. Hearing is the elderly musician, reflective, with the lute well touched, and Taste —the young man, with a bright eye, beckoning to you over his glass- expresses quite without greediness the healthv jovs of appetite. An " imitator of Vandyke," Gonzales Coques has been called. It is not his imitation that charms us — we have taken no count of it : we have little need to. It is his independence — his penetration, his simplicity, his liveliness, his ease. A painter of Church interiors — the elder Bosboom of his day and land — shall have the last word — Pieter Neeffs ; born at Antwerp in the last quarter of the Sixteenth Century; dying there too in the last quarter of the Seventeenth. Pupil of Steenwyck the elder, Pieter Neeffs's works were less highly wrought— -were less the performances of a petit- maUre. He drew with accuracy : with some approach to freedom : his hues, it is implied, or said, were chilly. To show that meritorious as xviii THE NATIONAL GALLERY— FLEMISH SCHOOL he was, he fell short of the highest, I really need not have introduced the name of a great modern that master of sober dignity, of sober mysteriousness, of broad handling, of learned omission — Johannes Bosboom. Johannes Bosboom had no need to be summoned. It would have sufficed to call in evidence a distinguished Dutchman of the earlier day he who. of the artists of that time, treated these things best ; with most of quietude and most of vigour. To "place" Pieter Neeffs — welcome enough and worthy as that painter may have been — is it necessarv to do anything but think for a moment of the liner method and the finer achievement of Emmanuel de Witte ? XIX FLEMISH SCHOOL OF PAINTING LIST OF PAINTERS AND THEIR PICTURES AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY IN PURSUANCE OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY LOAN ACT, PICTURES ARE FROM TIME TO TIME TEMPORARILY REMOVED FROM THE NATIONAL GALLERY, TRAFALGAR SQUARE, FOR EXHIBITION ELSEWHERE EYCK. JAN VAN. 1390 ?-i44o. Portraits of Jean Arnolfini and Jeanne de Chenany, his wife. 186. A Man's Portrait. 222. Portrait of a Man. 290. WEYDEN. ROGIER VAN DER. About 1400-1464. The Deposition in the Tomb. 664. " Mater Dolorosa." 711. " Ecce Homo." 712. WEYDEN, VAN DER (Later School of) ? The Magdalen. 654. CRISTUS, PETRUS. 1417-1473. Portrait of a Young Man. (Lent by George Salting, Esq.) BOUTS, DIERICK (Attributed to). 14 — ?-i475- Virgin and Child. (Lent by George Salting, Esq.) MEMLINC, HANS. ? 1495. The Virgin and Infant Christ, Enthroned, in a Garden. 686. The Madonna and Infant Christ. 709. MEMLINC, HANS (Ascribed to). St. John the Baptist Holding a Lamb on his Left Arm ; St. Laurence, Deacon. Holding a Gridiron by his Side. 747. DAVID, GHEERAERT. 1450^-1523. A Canon and His Patron Saints. (Formerly the right wing oi the Reredos ol the Altar <>l St. John the Baptist and St. Mary Magdalenr in the Collegiate Church of St. Donatian at Bruges.) 1045. The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine. 1432. xxi '' THE NATIONAL GALLERY— FLEMISH SCHOOL MASSYS (MATSYS, METSYS), QUINTEN. Before 1460-1530. Salvator Mundi and the Virgin Mary. 295. ENGELBERTSZ, CORNELIS. 1468-1533. Mother and Child, in a Landscape. 714. GOSSART. JAN' OF MABUSE. 1470 ? -1541. ' Portrait of a Man Dressed in Black with Fur over his Shoulders. 656. A Man's Portrait. 946. Portrait of a Man and His Wife. 1689. MOSTERT. or MOSTAERT. JAN. 1474— after 1549. The Virgin and Child in a Garden. 713. BLES, HERRI DE (CIVETTA). About 1480— after 1551. Mount Calvary. Christ on the Cross. 718. The Magdalen. 719. PATINIR, or PATINIER, JOACHIM. 14— 3 in or before 1524. The Crucifixion. 715. St. Christopher Carrying the Infant Christ. 716. St. John on the Island of Patmos. 717. A Nun. 945. The Visit of the Virgin to St. Elizabeth. 1082. The Flight into Egypt. 1084. Landscape : River Scene. 1298. ORLEY, BARENT (OR BERNARD) VAN. About 1491-1542. The Magdalen, Reading. 655. BRUYN, BARTHOLOMAUS 15— P-I556. Portrait of a Man. (Lent by George Salting, Esq.) FLEMISH. XV. AND EARLY XVI. CENTURIES. A Count of Hennegau (Hainault) with His Patron Saint, Ambrose. 264. The Virgin and Child. 265. Portraits of a Man and His Wife. 653. Portrait of Marco Barbarigo, Venetian Consul in London in 1449. 696. The Madonna and Child. 708. Portrait of an Ecclesiastic. 710. The Madonna and Child Enthroned. 774. The Exhumation of St. Hubert, Bishop of Liege, in the Eighth Century. 783. Portrait of a Man. 943. A Man's Portrait. 947. A Man's Portrait. 1036. Bust-Portrait of a Young Man. 1063. The Deposition from the Cross. 1078. The Adoration of the Kings. 1079. xxii the national gallery— flemish school FLEMISH. XV. AND EARLY XVI. CENTURIES (continued) Portrait of a Man in an Attitude of Prayer. 1081. Christ Crowned with Thorns. 1.083. Christ Appearing to the Virgin Mary after His Resurrection. 1086. The Virgin and Child, with St. Elizabeth. 1089. Christ Appearing to the Virgin Mary after His Resurrection. 1280. The Legend of St. Giles. 1419. Portrait of a Lady. 1433. HEMESSEX. CATHARINA VAN. Painting 15 -,2-1556 ? Portrait (three-quarter length) of a Man. 1042. CAMPANA. PEDRO. 1503-1570 2 Mary Magdalene Led by Martha to Hear the Preaching of Christ. 1241. LOMBARD. LAMBERT. 1505-1566. The Deposition from the Cross. 266. MOR (OR MORO). ANTONY. 1512-1577 ? Portrait of a Man. 1231. MOR (Ascribed to). Portrait of a Man. 1094. MARINUS VAN ROMERSWAEL. Painting 1521-1560. Two Bankers or Usurers in their Office. 944. CORNELISSEN (OR CORNELISZ). JACOB. 1475 ? -1560 ? Portraits of a Dutch Gentleman and Lady. 657. LUCIDEL. NICOLAS 1527 P-I590 2 Portrait of a Young German Lady. 18^. XEEFFS. PIETER. i577(8)-after 1656. The Interior of a Gothic Church, 924. RUBENS. PETER PAUL. 1577-1640. The Abduction of the Sabine Women. 38. Peace and War ; or, Peace and Plenty. 4(1. The Conversion of St. Bavon. 57. The Brazen Serpent. 59. A Landscape : Autumn, with a View of the Chateau de Stein. 66 A Holy Family, with St. George and other Saints. 67. A Landscape : Sunset. 157. The Apotheosis of William the Taciturn of Holland. 187. The Judgment of Paris. 194. The Triumph of Julius Cresar. 278. The Horrors oi War. 270. Portrait of Susanne Fourment. known as the " Chapeau de Paille." 852. The Triumph oi Silenus. 853. I he Fall oi the Damned. 853(a). The Fall "I the D. mined. N.V.'M. xxiii THE NATIONAL GALLERY— FLEMISH SCHOOL RUBENS. PETER PAUL— {continued) The Fall of the Damned. 853(c). The Fall of the Damned. 853^/). The Martyrdom of a Saint. 853(c). The Descent of the Holy Spirit. 853(/). The Crucifixion. 853(g). Portrait of a Girl (half-length). 853(//). Portrait of a Lady. 853(7'). Portrait of a Young Lady. 853(7). Sketch for Monumental Sculpture. 853(&). Sketch for Monumental Sculpture. 853(/). Sketch for Monumental Sculpture. 853(777). Sketch for Monumental Sculpture, or Design for Frontispiece. 853(«). Study of a Lionness. 853(0). Sketch of a Lion Hunt. 853(7)). Landscape : A Sketch. 948. The Birth of Venus (Design for a Silver Dish of Oval Form). 1195. SNYDERS, FRANS. 1579-1657. A Fruit-piece. 1252. STEENWYCK, HENDRICK, Jun. 1580-1649 ? An Interior. 1132. Interior of a Church. 1443. TENIERS. DAVID, the Elder. 1582-1649. Rocky Landscape. 949. The Conversation. 950. Playing at Bowls. 951. RYCKAERT, MARTIN. 1587-1631. A Landscape, with Satyrs. 1353. DYCK. SIR ANTHONY VAN. 1599-1641. Portrait of an Artist (?) 49. The Emperor Theodosius refused Admission into the Church by St. Ambrose. 50. Portrait of Cornelius van der Geest. 52. A Study of Horses. 156. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes. 680. Portrait of the Artist. 877. The Crucifixion. 877(a). Rinaldo and Armida, with Cupids. 877(6). An Equestrian Portrait of Charles I., King of Great Britain and Ireland. 1172. FLEMISH. XVII. CENTURY. A Hilly Woody Landscape. 1017. TENIERS. DAVID, the Younger. 1610-1690. A Music Party. 154. xxiv THE NATIONAL GALLERY— FLEMISH SCHOOL TENIERS. DAVID, the Yo\JUGER-^(continued) The Misers, or Money-changers. 155. Boors Regaling. 158. Players at Tric-trac, or Backgammon. 242. An Old Woman Peeling a Pear. 805. The Chateau of Teniers at Perck. 817. The Four Seasons. 857-860. Spring. 857. Summer. 858. Autumn. 859. Winter. 860. River Scene. 861. The Surprise. 862. Dives, or the Rich Man in Hell (Luke xvi. 23). known as " Le Mauvais Riche." 863. The Village Fete, or the Fete aux Chaudrons. 952. The Toper. 953. FYT. JAN. 1611-1661. Dead Birds. 1003. Dogs and Game. 1903. DUCHATEL. FRANCOIS. 1616-1694. Portrait of a Boy. 1810. COQUES (COCX), GONZALES. 1618-1684. A Family Group. 821. Portrait of a Lady. roil. Sight. 1114. Hearing, n 15. Feeling. 11 16. Smell. 1 1 17. Taste. 1 1 18. MERIAN, MAnTLEUS. 1621-1687. Portrait of a Man, 1012. MEULEN, ADAM F. VAN DER. 1632-1690. A Hunting Party. M47- HUYSMANS, CORNELIS. " 1648-1727. Landscape. Woody Country, Blue Hills in the Distance. 1154. HUYSMAN, JACOB. 1656 1696. Izaak Walton. 125. (National Portrait Gallery, 1168.) w\ ILLUSTRATIONS IT. ATE I A MANS I'Ok I RA1 I BY J\N VAN EYCK PLATE II PORTRAITS OF JEAN ARNOLFIN1 \M> J] \\\l Dl I HEN \\Y HIS WIFE I'.Y J \N VAN EYCK ■ PLATE III Photo, //■!•■■ A MAN S I'UKI R \l I BY JAN VAN EY( K PLATE IV , Han THE Hi: POSITION IN THE TOMB BY ROC! IKK VAN DER WEYDEN PLATE V Photo, Hatt ' I HI. M \c,I).\i.i:n by rogier van der weyden plati-: VI 1 1 A NUN BY JOACHIM PA I I XI R PLATE VII i I'OK'J KAI I OF \ Y< »UNG MAN BY PETRI s ( KISTUS PLATE VIII .< ■ I III-: VIRGIN AND CHILD l',Y DIERN K BOl f5 PLATE IX ft I [•HE VIRGIN AND [NF ANT CHRIS! ENTHRONED IN \ GARDEN. BY II \NS MEMLINC PLATE X SAINT JOHN I HE BAP1 [S'J AND SAINT I. WVKI A< I DE V ON. AS< UIBKU TO HANS .MI..MIJN( & s 3 W X - CJ O W Q as w < pi w X o _ I — I — PQ PLATE XII Hanfstaengl A ( ANON AND HIS PATRON SAINTS BY GHEERAERT DAVID a*. . s < o w H Q ?< - X W OS H P X. > a c/> PQ PLATE XIV Photo \ MAN'S PORTRAIT BY JAN G0SSAR1 PLATE XV Photo. H THE MAGDALENE READING BY BARENT VAN OKU Y PLATE XVI Photo, H P0RTRAI1 OF A MAX I'.Y BAR! HOLOM UJS BRUYN PLATE XV II Photo, I Ian: I WO BANKERS OK USURERS IN THEIR OFFICE BY MARINUS VAN ROMERSWAEL i'i. \ it: win I" IRTE Ml OF A MAN BY ANTONY M( iR PI ATE XIX PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG GERMAN LADY BY NICOLAS LU< [DEL X X w '< < ^ °« O H W Pi 5 a •§ 3 ^« • ^ t/5 \ •" ■11 2 ^ Ifci cu « , p Si 1 * Jv k^" Q W w\ ■ & h A l P->W Jmt ,, frl ^M w JjL n = > ■ 1 * H PQ X ■/, w < w H c/) W Q 1 P 1 ^ H < < 1 = O LJ M-j k H 1 t-H fe *** - — ■r. 1 > ,■ H --" « PLATE XXIV / 'h to, Ha • ■ PORTRAIT OF SUSANNE FOURMENT, KNOWN AS THE ■• ( H \l'l..\r DP. PAILLE ' BY IT.I ll< I'AIL kl'BKNS > x < C/3 H W i — i /■ X Oh W C/3 td w H PQ y - P in p g S y x < p- ;> < 'X y. x w 2; o > <: • en en £ in m o 2 o w -1 O H PQ w Q W w ca . ; y: p 1 c _ M X. w H — H — 1— 1 X X w < < a Q 2 Q W W H c/i" OS W 'A W H hJ - O o > W P J W w B H O ps PS w O u W PLATE XXXVII ■'■ PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST BY SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK PLATE XXXVIII A STUDY OF HORSES BY SIR ANTHONY VAN DY( K . \ . PLATE XXXIX Photo, Hanfstaettgl HIS OWN PORTRAIT BY SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK PLATE XL I HE EMPEROR I HEODOSIUS REF1 SED ADMISSION TO I ill. CHI R( II BY SIR AM 1IOXY VAN DY< K :- is '^■i W fa O « o u Q < O > — • j - o r; § - PLATE XLII Photo, 1 la iii< PORTRAIT OF CORNELIUS VAN DER GEEST BY SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK ■A < - *s w o o H Pi W M J Q ►-< ^ > * w DC H c/5 Pi w w H IT. W ^ Q Pm pq > X w H Pi W £ Ph £ s fi M J H W - < y< a w o h 25 O Q X & /. 85 H PQ g Q pq - p o o - en W P o* o o y W -1 N V. o o PLATE LII Pkoto t Neivnes PORTRAIT OF A LADY BY GONZALES COQUES > < ■- H en W P a o o w N H O PLATE LV Photo, Han/slaengl TASTE BY GONZALES COQLES PLATE LVI /vm/,1, uu\\ \ VND ENFANT CHRIS1 FLEMISH 5< HOOL, XV. AND \\ I. < I N i i R 1 1 PLATE LXIII . ,'.' i rt&tftgl I III MADONNA \NI> ( 1 1 1 I.I > INI II R< >NED II I MISII SCHOOL, XV. AMi XVI. CENTURIES PLATE LXIV Photo, Hanfstaengl THE EXHUMATION OF ST. HUBERT, BISHOP OF LIEGE FLEMISH SCHOOL, XV. AND XVI. CENTURH S PLATE LXV Photo, Haufstatngl A LADY AS M \l< Y M VGDALENE FLEMISH S( H0< IL DUE op »*- 1" UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A A 000 182 853 2 \LIFORNIA, SAL1F.