CHAPTER XVIII
IN BELGIUM AND HOLLAND
Reluctantly Alfonso and Leo left Lucille and May in Paris. Both were welleducated and beautiful women. It is possible that Alfonso might haveloved May Ingram had he been thrown more into her company, and so knownher better in early life, but the Harrises and Ingrams rarely met eachother in society. As for Leo, he loved Lucille, but she had erected animpassable barrier in her utterance on the steamer, "First love or none."
Leo in a thousand ways had been kind to her, because he hoped eventuallyto win her favor, and possibly because he fully appreciated the value ofmoney. Fortunes in Europe are not so easily made, but once won, the richof the old world as a rule husband their resources better then they ofthe new world. On the whole Alfonso and Leo were glad to cut loose fromsociety obligations and be free to absorb what generations of artdevelopment in the Netherlands had to offer.
Leaving Paris they took the express via Rheims for Brussels. Enteringthis beautiful capital of the Belgians in the northern part of the city,they took a cab that drove past the Botanic Garden down the Rue Royale tothe Hotel Bellevue which is near the Royal Palace and overlooks a park,embellished with sculptures, trees, flowers, and smooth lawns. One of themost enjoyable and profitable things for tourists to do in their travelsis to climb at least one tower or height, as the views and correctinformation thus obtained will cling longest to the memory.
Brussels is Paris in miniature. The royal palace and park may be comparedto the Tuileries. The beautiful drive down the Boulevard de Waterloo andup Avenue Louise leads directly to the Bois de la Cambre, a lovely forestof four hundred and fifty acres, which resembles the Bois de Boulogne ofParis. Nearly six miles of old and new boulevards encircle Brussels,passing through the upper and lower portions of the city. The pleasingvariety of some of the more handsome buildings is due to the competitionfor large premiums offered for the finest facades. The resemblance ofBrussels to Paris is perhaps more apparent in the cafes, shops, andpublic amusements along the busy boulevards. West of the Royal Palace isthe picture gallery owned by the state, and by judicious and repeatedpurchases, the collection of pictures is considered superior to that ofthe famous gallery in Antwerp. In this gallery the two young artistsspent several pleasant half-days comparing the early Flemish and Dutchschools. Especially did they study portrait work by Rubens, Frans Hals,and Van der Helst. All the work by the blacksmith artist Quinten Matsysin color or iron proved of great interest to the young Americans.
Finally Leo, who knew much of the old masters of Europe, took Alfonso tosee the Musee Wiertz, which contains all the works of a highly gifted andeccentric master. In a kind of distemper Wiertz painted Napoleon in theInfernal Region, Vision of a Beheaded Man, A Suicide, The Last Cannon,Curiosity, and Contest of Good and Evil, Hunger, Madness and Crime, etc.As Brussels is located near the center of Belgium, the city is veryconvenient to several cities that contain many works attractive topainters and architects.
On arrival at Antwerp Alfonso and Leo rode to one of the statelycathedrals, near which a military band was playing. Before the churchstood a bronze statue of Peter Paul Rubens. The scrolls and books,which lie on the pedestal, with brush, palette, and hat, are allusionsto the varied pursuits of Rubens as diplomatist, statesman, and painter.The two young artists hastened into the cathedral to see Rubens's famouspictures, The Descent from the Cross, and The Assumption. His conceptionand arrangement were admirable, his drawing carefully done, and hiscoloring harmonious and masterly.
Rubens, the prince of Flemish painters, was knighted. He was handsome andamiable, and his celebrity as an artist procured for him the friendshipand patronage of princes and men of distinction throughout Europe.
Not far from the cathedral the young artists came to the museum, infront of which rises a statue to Van Dyck, pupil of Rubens. "Here,Alfonso," said Leo, "is encouragement for you, for Van Dyck like yourselfwas the son of a wealthy man or merchant of Antwerp. He was educated inItaly, where he executed several fine portraits which I saw in Genoa asI journeyed to Paris." Charles I. of England appointed Van Dyckcourt-painter and knighted him. Van Dyck's ambition was to excel inhistorical works, but the demand upon him for portraits never left himmuch leisure for other subjects. How often "man proposes, but Goddisposes."
Alfonso and Leo reached Dort or Dordrecht, which in the middle ages wasthe most powerful and wealthy commercial city in Holland. Huge raftsfloat down from the German forests, and at Dordrecht the logs are sawedby the many windmills. The Dutch province of Zealand is formed by ninelarge islands on the coast of the North Sea, and it has for its heraldicemblem a swimming lion with a motto _Luctor et Emergo_.
Most of the province, which is created by the alluvial deposits of theScheldt, is below the sea-level, and is protected against theencroachments of the sea by vast embankments of an aggregate length of300 miles. Willows are planted along the dykes, the annual repairs ofwhich cost $425,000. An old proverb says, "God made the land, we Dutchmade the sea."
This fertile soil produces abundant crops of wheat and other grain. NearDort is a vast reed-forest, covering more than 100 islands, which is alsocalled, "Verdronken land," drowned land. This area of forty square miles,once a smiling agricultural tract, was totally inundated on the 18th ofNovember, 1421. Seventy-two thriving market towns and villages weredestroyed, and 100,000 persons perished. Leo made a sketch of the towerof Huis Merwede, the solitary and only relic of this desolate scene.
The two artists visited Rotterdam, the second commercial city in Holland,which is fourteen miles from the North Sea and on the right bank of theMaas. An attractive quay a mile in length is the arriving and startingpoint for over 100 steamboats that connect Rotterdam with Dutch towns,the Rhine, England, France, Russia, and the Mediterranean.
Alfonso and Leo studied the collection of portraits at Boyman's Museum,and sketched in the River Park the happy people who were grouped undertrees, by the fish ponds, and along the grassy expanses. Alfonso bought aphotograph of the illustrious Erasmus. It is about ten miles to Delft,once celebrated for its pottery and porcelain, a city to-day of 25,000inhabitants. Here on the 10th of July, 1584, William of Orange, Founderof Dutch independence, was shot by an assassin to secure the price set onWilliam's head by Farnese.
Our two artists visited a church in Delft to see the marble monument tothe memory of the Prince of Orange, which was inscribed "Prince William,the Father of the Fatherland." Not far is Delft Haven which Americanslove to visit, and where the pious John Robinson blessed a brave littleband as it set sail to plant in a new world the tree of Liberty.
At length the artists reached The Hague, which for centuries has been thefavorite residence of the Dutch princes, and to-day is occupied by thecourt, nobles, and diplomatists. No town in Holland possesses so manybroad and handsome streets, lofty and substantial blocks, and spacioussquares as The Hague.
Alfonso and Leo hastened to Scheveningen, three miles west of The Hague,on the breezy and sandy shores of the North Sea, a clean fishing villageof neat brick houses sheltered from the sea by a lofty sand dune. Herebathing wagons are drawn by a strong horse into the ocean, where thebather can take his cool plunge. Scheveningen possesses a hundred fishingboats. The fishermen have an independent spirit and wear quaint dress. Apublic crier announces the arrival of their cargoes, which are sold atauction on the beach, often affording picturesque and amusing scenes,sketches of which were made. The luminous appearance of the sea caused byinnumerable mollusca affords great pleasure to visitors, twenty thousandof whom every year frequent this fashionable sea-bathing resort.
The second evening after the artists' arrival at Scheveningen, as theysauntered along on the brick-paved terrace in sight of white sails andsetting sun, Alfonso was agreeably surprised to meet in company with hermother, Christine de Ruyter, a young artist, whose acquaintance he hadmade in the Louvre at Paris.
Christine's father, prominent for a long time in the vessel trade, hadrecently died, leaving a fortune to his wife and two daughters, on
e ofwhom, Fredrika was already married. They were descended from the famousAdmiral de Ruyter, who in 1673 defeated the united fleets of France andEngland off the coast of Scheveningen, which fact added much of interestto their annual visit to this resort. While Leo talked with the mother,Alfonso listened to Christine, as she told much about the historic familywith which she was connected, and in return she learned somewhat of youngHarris's family and their visit to Europe.
Christine, who was about Alfonso's age, had fair complexion, light hair,and soft blue eyes. Her beauty added refinement that education and widetravel usually furnish.
It was seen in Alfonso's face and in his marked deference that Christinefilled his ideal of a beautiful woman. Christine and her mother and theyoung artists were registered at the Hotel de Orange, so of necessitythey were thrown into each other's company. They drove to The Hague,compared the statues of William of Orange with each other; rode alongthe elegant streets, south through the Zoological and Botanical Gardens,through the park, and to the drill grounds. A half-day was spent invisiting the "House in the Woods," a Royal Villa, one and one-halfmiles northeast of The Hague. This palace is beautifully decorated,particularly the Orange Salon, which was painted by artists of the schoolof Rubens.
Alfonso and Leo enjoyed their visits to the celebrated picture gallery,which contains among many Dutch paintings the famous pictures by PaulPotter and Rembrandt. Paul Potter's Bull is deservedly popular. Thispicture was once carried off to Paris, and there ranked high in theLouvre, and later the Dutch offered 60,000 florins to Napoleon for itsrestoration.
Christine, who was well conversant with art matters, knew the locationand artistic value of each painting and guided the young Americans toworks by Van Dyck, Rubens, the Tenniers, Holbein, and others. She wasproud of a terra-cotta head of her ancestor, Admiral de Ruyter. The partysoon reached Rembrandt's celebrated "School of Anatomy," originallypainted for the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons. Tulp is in black coat withlace collar and broad-brimmed soft hat, dissecting a sinew of the arm ofthe corpse before him. He is explaining, with gesture of his left hand,his theory to a group of Amsterdam surgeons. No painter ever beforesucceeded in so riveting the attention of spectators in the presence ofdeath. The listeners appear altogether unconscious of the pallid corpsethat lies before them on the dissecting table.
Invited by Christine's mother, the young artists accompanied the DeRuyters to Amsterdam, the commercial capital of Holland, with 300,000inhabitants. They live on ninety islands formed by intersecting canals,which are crossed by three hundred bridges. The buildings rest onfoundations of piles, or trees, which fact gave rise to Erasmus's jest,that he knew a city where the people dwelt on tops of trees, like rooks.
Alfonso took Leo into the suburbs to see diamond polishing. The machineryis run by steam, and the work is done largely by Portuguese Jews. Theseprecious stones are cut or sawed through by means of wires covered withdiamond dust, and the gems are polished by holding them against rapidlyrevolving iron disks moistened with a mixture of diamond dust and oil.
Christine's people lived in a red brick mansion, the gable of whichcontained a portrait in relief of Admiral de Ruyter, and fronted a shadedstreet on a canal. Here the American artists were handsomely entertained.They were driven to the picture galleries and the palace or town-hall inthe Dam Square, where Louis Napoleon and Hortense once resided. From thetower which terminates in a gilded ship the artists obtained fine viewsof Northern Holland. Christine pointed out the Exchange and other objectsof interest in the city, which abounds in narrow streets and broadcanals, the latter lined with fine shade trees. Many of the tall,narrow houses have red tile roofs, quaint fork-chimneys, and they standwith gables to the canals. The docks show a forest of masts.
The environs of the city are covered with gardens; trees adorn the roads,while poplars and willows cross or divide the fields, which are studdedwith windmills and distant spires, and everywhere are seen fertile corps,black and white cattle, and little boats creeping slowly along thecanals.
A Hollander's wealth is often estimated by his windmills. If asked, "Howrich?" The reply comes, "Oh, he is worth ten or twelve windmills."Holland seems alive with immense windmills. They grind corn, they sawwood, they pulverize rocks, and they are yoked to the inconstant windsand forced to contend with the water, the great enemy of the Dutch. Theyconstantly pump water from the marshes into canals, and so prevent theinundation of the inhabitants. The Hollander furnishes good illustrationof the practical value of Emerson's words, "Borrow the strength of theelements. Hitch your wagon to a star, and see the chores done by the godsthemselves."
To the west are seen the church spires of Haarlem, and its long canal,which like a silver thread ties it to Amsterdam. To the east the towersof Utrecht are visible, and to the north glitter in the morning sun thered roofs of Zaandam and Alkmaar.
Far away stretched the waters of the Zuider Zee, which Holland plans toreclaim by an enbankment from the extreme cape of North Holland, to theFriesland coast, so as to shut out the ocean, and thereby acquire 750,000square miles of new land; a whole province. At present 3,000 personsand 15,000 vessels are employed in the Zuider Zee fisheries, the revenuesof which average $850,000 a year. It is proposed to furnish equivalentsto satisfy these fishermen. It is estimated that this wonderfulengineering feat will extend over 33 years and cost $131,250,000.
Christine now conducted her artist friends out of the Palace and over tothe Rijks Museum to see Rembrandt's largest and best work, his "NightWatch." It is on the right as you enter, covering the side of the room.It represents a company of arquebusiers, energetically emerging fromtheir Guild House on the Singel. The light and shade of the Night Watchis so treated as to form a most effective dramatic scene, which, sinceits creation, in 1642, has been enthusiastically admired by all artconnoisseurs.
Rembrandt was the son of a miller, and his studio was in his father'swind-mill, where light came in at a single narrow window. By closeobservation he became master of light and shade, and excelled in vigorand realism. At $50 a year he taught pupils who flocked to him from allparts of Europe, but, like too many possessed of fine genius, he died inpoverty. Later, London paid $25,000 for a single one of his six hundredand forty paintings. The Dutch painters put on canvas the everydayhome-life and manners of their people, while the Flemish represented morethe religious life of the lower Netherlands.
These journeys in Belgium gave Alfonso and Leo enlarged ideas as to thepossibilities of portrait painting. In Alma Tadema, of Dutch descent, andMillais they saw modern examples of wonderful success, which made clearto them that the high art of portrait painting once acquired, both fameand fortune are sure to follow.
Christine de Ruyter had taken lessons of the best masters in Holland,Italy, and France. Few, if any women artists of her age, equalled orexcelled her. Her conversations on art in the Netherlands charmed hertwo artist friends. She said, "The works of art of the fifteenth andseventeenth centuries in the Netherlands seemed to grow out of the verysoil of the low countries. Our old artists revelled in the variedcostumes and manifold types that thronged the cities of the HanseaticLeague. The artist's imagination was fascinated by the wealth of color hesaw on sturdy laborers, on weather-beaten mariners, burly citizens, andsagacious traders.
"Rubens delighted often in a concentrated light, and was master ofartistic material along the whole range. He painted well portraits,landscapes, battles of heroes, gallant love-making of the noble, and thecoarse pleasures of the vulgar. Nearly a thousand pictures bear the nameof Rubens.
"The artistic labor of Frans Hals of Haarlem extended over half acentury. He possessed the utmost vivacity of conception, purity of color,and breadth of execution, as shown in his latest works, and so well didhe handle his brush that drawing seems almost lost in a maze of colortone. The throng of genre painters, who have secured for Dutch art itsgreatest triumph, are well nigh innumerable."
Christine was very fond of flower-pieces, and had painted lovelymarguerites on Gertrude's white dress, in Al
fonso's full length pictureof his sister, which he was soon to carry to Paris as his weddingpresent.
Leo and Alfonso much wished to extend their journey north to Copenhagenand Stockholm, the "Venice of the North," but letters urging a speedyreturn to the marriage of George and Gertrude in Paris, forced the twoartists to shorten their journey, say good-bye to their kind friends ofAmsterdam, and hasten back to Paris, taking portraits of their own skillas wedding gifts.
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