Part 16 (1/2)
ANTWERP FROM THE TIME OF RUBENS TILL TO-DAY
If there is one name more honoured in Flanders than any other--more often employed as the name of hotels, restaurants or cafes; more frequently on the lips of guides, caretakers and sacristans; more constantly in the mind of every tourist, be he or she American, English or Continental--it is the name of the greatest of Flemish painters, Peter Paul Rubens. No book on Flanders, and most a.s.suredly no work touching on Antwerp, would be complete without some reference to the life and work of this prince among painters, yet no task can be more superfluous, since nothing can be said that will add in the slightest degree to his fame. He ranks in the history of art with the greatest masters in the world--with Michael Angelo, Leonardo, Rembrandt, Raphael, t.i.tian and Velasquez--and it is probable that more books have been written about him than about Antwerp itself.
Occasional references have been made in previous chapters to notable paintings by Rubens to be seen in various churches throughout Flanders--particularly to ”The Miraculous Draught of Fishes” at Malines, which is said to have been saved from the destruction of that city, having been carried away before the first of its many bombardments. It is at Antwerp, however, that the tourist who desires to study the work of Rubens will find him at his best and in greatest profusion. And the most famous spot enriched by his unrivalled art is the cathedral. Here hang his two greatest devotional works, ”The Elevation of the Cross” and ”The Descent from the Cross.” The former was painted in 1610 and gave the young artist--he was then only thirty-three--instant and enduring fame. The companion work was completed the following year. Neither was originally painted for the cathedral. ”The Elevation of the Cross,” the earlier and inferior of the two, was intended to be the altarpiece for the church of Ste.
Walburge, while the other was painted for the Society of Arquebusiers, to adjust a difficulty that had arisen over apportioning the cost of a wall separating Rubens' house from that of the guild. Both, however, are in an ideal location where they now are, and form an admirable starting point from which to see, first the cathedral, and then the work of Rubens as a whole.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS.”--RUBENS.]
The Cathedral of Notre Dame is without doubt the most beautiful Gothic church in Belgium, and has thus far happily escaped the ravages of the present war--pa.s.sing unscathed through the furious German bombardment of the city. Begun in 1352 it was, like other churches of its size, centuries in reaching completion. The exquisite lace-work in stone of the north tower was completed during the sixteenth century, but was not wholly finished when the iconoclasts ravaged the interior of the edifice. Originally the church of St. Mary, it became the Cathedral of Notre Dame in 1560. The nave and transepts were not vaulted until 1611-16, or the very period when Rubens was painting the famous pictures that now hang in the south transept. Work on the south tower was discontinued in 1474, which seems a pity, as its completion would have made the cathedral one of the most perfect specimens of Gothic architecture in the world. As it is, the single tower dominates the old part of the city and is a familiar feature of its sky line. The chimes of the cathedral are famous, and are often played by Jef Denyn of Malines. There are forty bells of various sizes, of which the greatest was named Charles V, and requires the strength of nineteen men to swing it. This bell was founded some eight years before the young Duke Charles made his joyous entry into Antwerp, and no doubt rang l.u.s.tily on that occasion.
The interior of the cathedral is very vast, comprising six aisles, but is too well known to require description. Among the numerous paintings with which the chapels are adorned is one, a ”Descent from the Cross,”
by Adam Van Noort, the teacher of Jordaens, and said to be the first who taught Rubens how to handle a brush. In the second chapel on the south is an interesting ”Resurrection” by Rubens, which was painted in 1612 for the tomb of his friend Moretus, of the famous printing-house of Plantin. The fourth chapel on the same side contains the tomb of Christopher Plantin, with an inscription by his colleague and friend, Justus Lipsius, and several family portraits. The visitor will find many other points of interest in this vast church, which is a veritable museum of art, architecture, history and human progress. The high altarpiece is another famous Rubens, an ”a.s.sumption”--a subject which he painted no less than ten times. There are half a dozen other notable paintings by other artists, but the majority are of minor artistic importance. The rich Gothic choir stalls, however, are worth more than a pa.s.sing glance, for the wood-carvings here are very fine, although modern--having been begun in 1840, and completed forty years later. The elaborately carved pulpit was made in the eighteenth century by the sculptor Michel Vervoort, and was intended for the Abbey of St. Bernard.
After the completion of the two great masterpieces now in the cathedral Rubens was by universal acclaim acknowledged to be the foremost painter in Flanders and of his time. His studio was besieged by artists desirous of becoming the pupils of the brilliant master. As early as 1611 he wrote that he had already refused more than a hundred applicants. In 1614 he painted ”The Conversion of St. Bavon,” now in the cathedral of St. Bavon at Ghent; in 1617 ”The Adoration of the Magi” in the church of St. John at Malines, and ”The Last Judgment,”
now in the Pinacothek of Munich; in 1618 ”The Miraculous Draught of Fishes” at Malines; in 1619 ”The Last Communion of St. Francis,” now in the museum at Antwerp, and, according to Fromentin, his greatest masterpiece; in 1620 the ”Coup de Lance,” now at the museum of Antwerp, and his finest work according to some other authorities. In 1622-23 he produced the twenty-four superb paintings of the Galerie des Medicis. The ”Lion Hunt,” and the ”Battle of the Amazons,” now in the Pinacothek at Munich, belong to this decade, together with the six paintings of the history of Decius in the Liechtenstein Gallery, and thirty-nine pictures for the church of the Jesuits, of which all but three were destroyed at the burning of the church in 1718. The three are in the museum of Vienna.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”COUP DE LANCE.”--RUBENS.]
Here, in the s.p.a.ce of a little over ten years, were nearly a hundred masterpieces--works of such magnitude that two or three would have sufficed to immortalise any other painter. Yet in addition to these labours he designed for the tapestry-workers of Brussels the life of Achilles in eight parts, the history of Constantine in twelve, and many other cartoons of extraordinary merit. His friend, Moretus, in accordance with the high traditions of the house of Plantin, came to him for designs for many books, and he drew borders, designs, t.i.tle-pages and vignettes, and ill.u.s.trated himself a book on cameos.
He even painted triumphal arches and cars for ceremonial processions, and these works in his hands acquired a permanence of artistic value that is in itself one of the highest tributes to his genius. The fine portraits of Albert and Isabella, now in the museum at Brussels, were painted for a triumphal arch in the Place de Meir--yet they are masterpieces of portraiture, perfect and splendid down to the minutest detail!
According to a report made in 1879, by the _Commission Anversoise chargee de reunir l'ouevre de Rubens, en gravures ou en photographies_, there are altogether no less than two thousand, two hundred and thirty-five pictures and sketches by this amazingly prolific artist, and four hundred and eighty-four designs--a total of two thousand, seven hundred and nineteen known works. At Antwerp alone there are upwards of one hundred pictures, of which more than a score are masterpieces of world-wide renown and incalculable value. Besides the great trio at the cathedral, and the family portraits in the Plantin Museum, the museum catalogues more than thirty subjects of which the ”Spear Thrust” (_Coup de Lance_), ”Adoration of the Magi or Wise Men,” the ”Last Communion of Saint Francis,” the ”Christ on the Straw” (_a la Paille_), ”The Prodigal Son,” and ”Virgin Instructed by Saint Anne” are among the more notable. Both here and at the Plantin Museum the student of Rubens can find many interesting prints, sketches and minor examples of the great master's work. At the museum also is the interesting Holy Family known as ”_La Vierge au Perroquet_” (Virgin with the Parrot) which was presented by Rubens to the Guild of St. Luke when he was elected President of that famous organisation in 1631. Near the Place de Meir is the house of Rubens, largely a replica of the original built in the eighteenth century--few vestiges of the building in which the great painter held his almost royal court remaining. It is worth a visit, but is far inferior to the Plantin Museum as a memorial and in the interest and importance of its contents.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”_LA VIERGE AU PERROQUET._”--RUBENS.]
On his death in 1640--”twenty years too early”--the artist was buried in the church of St. Jacques, an edifice rivalling the cathedral in size and interest. It was the burial-place of many of the wealthiest families in Antwerp. The Rubens chapel is in the ambulatory, behind the high altar, and contains a picture of the ”Holy Family” which, according to the critics, is one of the worst of the artist's pictures. Several of the faces are those of his own family, which probably was the reason why his widow placed it here.
Besides the paintings in various churches and museums in Flanders there are twenty-three by Rubens in the museum at Brussels, seventy-seven in the Pinacothek at Munich, ninety at Vienna, sixty-six at Madrid, fifty-four in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg and the same number in the Louvre at Paris, sixteen at Dresden, thirty-one at London, while a considerable number can be seen in various public and private art collections in the United States. ”He is everywhere,”
writes Prof. Wauters with justifiable enthusiasm, ”and everywhere triumphant. No matter what pictures surround him, the effect is invariable; those which resemble his own are eclipsed, those that would oppose him are silenced; wherever he is he makes you feel his presence, he stands alone, and at all times occupies the first place.... He has painted everything--fable, mythology, history, allegory, portraits, animals, flowers, landscapes--and always in a masterly way.... Is he perfect? No one is. Has he faults? a.s.suredly.
He is sometimes reproached with having neither the outline of Raphael, the depth of Leonardo da Vinci, the largeness of t.i.tian, the naturalness of Velasquez, nor the chiaroscuro of Rembrandt. But he has the outline, the depth, the largeness, the naturalness and the chiaroscuro of Rubens; is not that enough?”
To appreciate fully the magnitude of this greatest of all Flemings it is necessary to recall, for a moment, the times in which he lived.
Fourteen years after the capture of Antwerp by the Prince of Parma, Philip II determined--when on his deathbed--to give the Spanish Netherlands partial independence by transferring the sovereignty over the loyal provinces possessed by the Crown of Spain to his daughter Isabella and her husband, the Archduke Albert. The arrival of the Archdukes, as they were called, in 1599, was made the occasion of a joyous entry that, on the whole, was justified by their Government--which was a great improvement over anything that had preceded it since the days of the unspeakable Alva. To be sure, the war with the States of Holland still dragged on, and the Scheldt was closed. But the burghers wisely sought to replace the loss of their sea trade by encouraging industries. Silk and satin manufactures during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries gave employment to upwards of twelve thousand hands, and diamond-cutting became an industry of growing importance. While the commercial stagnation was severely felt, the city did not decline like Bruges, but held much of its population and recovered some of its former wealth.
The Archdukes, who were relieved of the paralysing necessity of referring every important act to Madrid, did their best to heal the terrible wounds of the early years of the war and restore some degree of tranquillity and prosperity to their dominions. Religious persecutions ceased. Eager to win the love of their subjects, the Archdukes welcomed Rubens to Antwerp when he returned to his native city on the death of his mother in 1608, and in order to keep him from returning to Italy made him their court painter in 1609. During the remainder of his lifetime their favour never ceased, and on many occasions Rubens was sent as a special amba.s.sador of the Government on important diplomatic missions. His courtly manners and stately appearance favoured him, as well as his now tremendous artistic reputation. He was knighted by Charles I, while on a visit to England, and created a Master of Arts by the University of Cambridge. Among his friends he numbered--besides his royal patrons, Moretus, the printer, and Rockox, the burgomaster--many of the most famous scholars and statesmen of his time. He was interested in literature and science as well as art in all its branches and wrote a vast number of letters on an astounding variety of subjects--one calculation places the total number at eight thousand!
[Ill.u.s.tration: PETER PAUL RUBENS.]
As if his own achievements were not enough, the genius of Rubens was the torch that set aflame a renaissance of Flemish painting that made the later Flemish school, which justly bears his name, the peer of any in the long history of art. Of his many pupils the greatest is Anthony Van Dyck, who was born at Antwerp in 1599 and entered the studio of the master at the age of fifteen. In the little church of Saventhem, not far from Brussels, is the most famous of Van Dyck's early paintings which shows his precocious talent. Rubens had urged his promising pupil to visit Italy, and not only gave him a letter of introduction but provided funds for the long journey. The youth set forth, but in a little village on the way there happened to be a kermesse into the merriment of which he entered heartily. Among others with whom he danced was a beautiful country girl with whom the artist fell so deeply in love that he was unable to proceed any further, but devoted himself for days to courting her. Meanwhile his funds ran out, and he bethought himself with horror, when it was too late, that this meant the abandonment of the trip to Italy. In his extremity he applied to the parish priest and offered to paint an altarpiece for the village church on very moderate terms. It is related that the priest smiled indulgently at the youth's pretensions that he was a historical painter and put him off, saying that there were no funds.
Van Dyck, however, persisted, and offered to paint the picture if provided only with the canvas, and leave the matter of the price to the cure's liberality.
These terms could hardly be refused, and the young artist set to work with such energy that in a few weeks the picture was finished. The priest admired the work greatly, particularly the beautiful figure of the Saint--the subject selected having been Saint Martin dividing his Cloak among the Beggars--and sent for a connoisseur from Brussels to decide if he should keep the picture. The verdict was favourable, and the price paid to the artist enabled him to proceed on his journey to Italy. It is not reported whether the future painter of kings and courtiers ever returned to visit his fair inamorata of the kermesse, but this pretty story, which is told in a rare little book, ”Sketches of Flemish Painters,” published at The Hague in 1642, was written by a contemporary, and may quite possibly have been true. At any rate, there is the painting itself to prove it.
On his return to Antwerp in 1625 Van Dyck left behind him in Italy more than a hundred paintings, in itself a prodigious achievement. He now began to work in his native city with a rapidity and perfection resembling his master's and produced the altarpieces that are among the master works of Flemish churches. Here also he painted a marvellous galaxy of portraits of the great artists of his time and of the Flemish, French and Spanish n.o.bility. His marvellous etchings also belong to this period, so that Antwerp is a.s.sociated with much of his finest work in two great branches of art. In 1632 the artist went to London, which he had visited on one or two previous occasions, and became painter to the court of Charles I. Here he remained for the rest of his lifetime, painting more than three hundred and fifty pictures portraying the royal family and n.o.bility of England. He died in 1641, or only a year after his master, leaving a record of varied achievement comprising more than one thousand, five hundred works. The museum at Antwerp possesses twelve of his paintings, of which one of the most interesting is the ”Christ on the Cross” painted for the Dominican nuns in recognition of the care and tenderness with which they had nursed his father during the old man's last illness. The catalogue of the museum somewhat conceals the artist's name under the Flemish form, Antoon Van Dijck, which hardly suggests the brilliant and debonnaire Sir Anthony of Whitehall and the beauties of England under Charles the First. There are sixty-seven works by this master in Vienna, forty-one at Munich, thirty-eight at St. Petersburg, twenty-four at the Louvre, twenty-one in Madrid and nineteen in Dresden, but England possesses the largest collections of his productions, most of those he painted at London still remaining in the public and private galleries of that country.
It would be a tedious task to recount the names and works of the throng of lesser artists who studied at the feet of Rubens and Van Dyck during the fruitful years when those masters were giving their talents to the world with such amazing prodigality. Erasmus Quellin I, the Elder, was one of the first--a sculptor who founded a family of notable sculptors and painters who lived and gained renown at Antwerp for more than a century. Faid'herbe, whose work abounds at Malines, was another sculptor of the highest rank who was a direct pupil of Rubens; Dusquesnoy, Grupello and Verbrugghen were renowned sculptors who owed much to his influence.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”AS THE OLD BIRDS SING THE YOUNG BIRDS PIPE.”--JACOB JORDAENS.]