Works of Grant Allen

by Grant Allen

  (12) Attributed to Schoreel: really, by a master of the Brabant School. Death of the Virgin. Our Lady is represented on her deathbed, surrounded, as always, by the surviving apostles, who were miraculously collected together to her chamber. The faces are those of Flemish peasants or artisans. Above, Christ appears in glory, surrounded by a halo of cherubs, to receive her new-born soul. Two angels support his outer garment. This picture well shows the beginning of the later Flemish tendency.

  Now return to No. 5, by Gerard David, on the other side of the great Van Eyck. This is a *triptych, painted for Jean des Trompes, for the High Altar of the lower chapel of the Holy Blood. The central panel represents the Baptism of Christ. In the middle, the Saviour wades in the water of a diminutive Jordan, where the concentric circles show the increased careful study of nature. On the right-hand side of the picture, St. John-Baptist, patron saint of the donor, pours water on his head. The relative positions of these two figures, and of the angel to the left holding a robe, are conventional: they have descended from a very early period of art. (In the Ravenna mosaics, the place of the angel is filled by the river-god of the Jordan with his urn, afterwards transformed and Christianized into an angel with a towel. Look out in future for similar arrangements.) The central figures are weak; but the robe of the angel is painted with Flemish minuteness. So are the flowers and leaves of the foreground. Above, the dove descends upon the head of the Saviour, while the Eternal Father pronounces from the skies the words, “Behold my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”

  In the background are two other episodes: L., the preaching of St. John-Baptist (where Oriental costumes indicate the heathen); R., St. John-Baptist pointing out Christ to his disciples with the words, “Behold the Lamb of God.” The distance shows two towns and a fine landscape. Observe the admirable painting of the trees, with their good shadows; also the ivy climbing up the trunk of one to the right. This picture is among the earliest in which the gloom of a wood is accurately represented: in many other respects it well illustrates the rise of landscape-painting. (For an exhaustive criticism, see Conway.) The left wing has a portrait of the donor, with his other patron, St. John the Evangelist, holding the cup. Beside the donor kneels his little son Philip. This portrait, the face and foot of the Evangelist, the fur of the donor’s robe, the crane in the background, and many other accessories deserve close attention. Two figures in the background dimly foreshadow Teniers. The right wing has a portrait of the donor’s wife, Elizabeth, with her four daughters. Behind her stands her patroness, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, in Franciscan robes, with the crown on her head and the double crown and book in her hands, as on the statuette at the door of the Béguinage. The painting of a rosary here is excellent. The outer wings (turn them back) show, on the left, the Madonna and Child with a bunch of grapes; on the right, the donor’s second wife Madeleine, introduced by her patroness, St. Mary Madeleine, who holds the alabaster pot of ointment. By the lady’s side kneels her daughter. The background consists of a view, probably in the Bruges of that period. Painted about 1507.

  6 and 7. Gerard David. *The Punishment of the Unjust Judge. These two panels are of a type commonly set up in courts of justice as a warning to evil-doers. They were ordered by the Bruges magistracy. You will see a similar pair by Dierick Bouts in Brussels. The story, a horrid one, is taken from Herodotus. Sisamnes was a judge in Persia whom King Cambyses detected receiving a bribe and ordered to be flayed alive. The king then stretched his skin on the seat of judgment, and appointed the son of Sisamnes to sit in his father’s place, that he might remember to avoid a like fate. The first picture represents, in the background, the bribery. In the foreground, King Cambyses, in a rich embroidered robe, demonstrates on his fingers the guilt of the unjust judge. Sisamnes is seized on his tribunal by a man of the people; courtiers, lawyers, and burgesses looking on. The expression on his face and the painting of all the accessories is admirable. In the second picture we have the flaying of the unjust judge, a horrible scene, powerfully rendered. Cambyses stands by, holding his sceptre, surrounded by courtiers who recall the last age of the Burgundian dominion. In the background (as a subsequent episode) the son of Sisamnes is seen sitting in his father’s place: behind him hangs the skin of the father. Architecture, landscape, ropes, and all other accessories of this painful picture should be carefully noted.

  15. J. Prévost. Last Judgment. Below, the dead are rising, half naked, from the tomb, girt only with their shrouds; the good receiving garments from angels, and the bad hurried away to a very Flemish and unimpressive Hell. Above, Christ as Judge holds the sword. Two angels blow out the words of blessing or malediction. On the spectator’s left, Our Lady shows the breast that suckled the Redeemer. Behind her are St. Peter with the key, St. Paul with the sword, St. Bartholomew with the knife, and other saints. On the right are St. John-Baptist with the lamb, King David with the harp, Moses, horned (as always), with the tables of the law, and a confused group of saints. This picture is rather curious than beautiful. Above it is a later treatment of the same subject by Van Coornhuuse, interesting for comparison as showing the usual persistence of types and the conventional grouping of the individual figures. Compare especially the corresponding personages in the lower left-hand corners.

  A few other pictures skied on this wall deserve passing notice. 29 is a Death and the Miser, of the School of Quentin Matsys. 17, by Lancelot Blondeel, the architect of the great chimney-piece of the Franc de Bruges, represents St. Luke painting Our Lady, in one of the fantastic frames in which this painter delighted. 18, by the same, has a St. George and the Dragon, with the Princess Cleodolind looking on. Around it are four smaller scenes of his martyrdom: (he was boiled, burnt with torches, dragged by a horse, and finally decapitated). 11, is a good diptych of the Flemish school, by an unknown contemporary of Gerard David. It represents, left, a donor, with his patron St. John the Almoner, holding his symbol, a sheaf of corn. On the right, his wife with her patroness, St. Godeliva. 28, is an Adoration of the Magi, where the Three Kings again illustrate the three ages of man and the three continents. Beside it is a Nativity which exhibits all the traditional features already noted.

  The end wall has in its centre a tolerably good Adoration of the Magi, of the German School, 15th century. Note once more the Three Kings, of whom the youngest is a Moor. Left of this, a *drawing, by Jan van Eyck, of St. Barbara, which should be closely inspected. She holds a palm of martyrdom. In the background, workmen build her tower. It is interesting as a scene of real life at this period. This is a replica of the well-known picture at Antwerp. To the right, two coloured drawings by Gerard David from the life of St. John-Baptist. Above these hangs a tolerable P. Pourbus of the Last Judgment, valuable for comparison with the two previous treatments of the same subject on the principal wall. Go from one to the other once or twice. Later painters of the Renaissance use this solemn theme as a mere excuse for obtruding the nude — and often the vulgar nude — into churches. On the same wall are a good triptych in grisaille by P. Pourbus (Way to Calvary, Descent from the Cross, Resurrection: from Notre-Dame at Damme), and other pictures.

  The remaining walls have portraits and other works, from the 17th century downwards, most of which need no explanation. A few of them, indeed, are not without merit. But, as I have before observed, it is best in mediæval Bruges to confine oneself to the 13th, 14th, 15th, and early 16th centuries, leaving the rise of the Renaissance, and the later Flemish School of painting, to occupy us at Antwerp, where they can be studied to far greater advantage.

  GHENT

  A. ORIGINS OF GHENT

  FLANDERS owes everything to its water communications. At the junction of the Schelde with the Lys or Lei, there grew up in the very early Middle Ages a trading town, named Gent in Flemish, and Gand in French, but commonly Anglicised as Ghent. It lay on a close network of rivers and canals, formed partly by these two main streams, and partly by the minor channels of the Lieve and the Moere, which together intersect it into several islands.
Such a tangle of inland waterways, giving access both to the sea and to Bruges, Courtrai, and Tournai, as well as less directly to Antwerp and Brussels, ensured the rising town in early times considerable importance. It formed the centre of a radiating commerce. Westward, its main relations were with London and the English wool ports; eastward with Cologne, Maastricht, the Rhine towns, and Italy. Ghent was always the capital of East Flanders, as Bruges or Ypres were of the Western province; and after the Counts lost possession of Arras and Artois, it became in the 13th century their principal residence and the metropolis of the country. The trade in weaving grew rapidly in importance, and the Ghenters received from their Count a charter of liberties of the usual mediæval burgher type. As time went on, and the city advanced in wealth, its subjection to its sovereigns became purely nominal. Ghent equipped large bodies of citizen soldiers, and repulsed a considerable English army under Edward I. The Ghenters were also determined opponents of the claims of the French kings to interfere in the internal affairs of Flanders; thus they were mainly instrumental in winning the famous Battle of the Spurs in 1302, when the citizens of Bruges and Ghent put to flight the army of France under the Count of Artois before the walls of Tournai, and dedicated as trophies 700 golden spurs, worn by the French knights whom they had routed. This battle, memorable as one of the chief triumphs of nascent industrial freedom over the chivalry and royalty of mediævalism, secured the liberties of the Flemish towns against French aggression.

  Early in the 14th century, the burghers of Ghent, under their democratic chief, Jacob or Jacques Van Artevelde, attained practical independence. Till 1322, the Counts and people of Flanders had been united in their resistance to the claims of France; but with the accession of Count Louis of Nevers, the aspect of affairs changed. Louis was French by education, sympathies, and interests, and aristocratic by nature; he sought to curtail the liberties of the Flemish towns, and to make himself despotic. The wealthy and populous burgher republics resisted, and in 1337 Van Artevelde was appointed Captain of Ghent. Louis fled to France, and asked the aid of Philip of Valois. Thereupon, Van Artevelde made himself the ally of Edward III. of England, then beginning his war with France; but as the Flemings did not like entirely to cast off their allegiance — a thing repugnant to mediæval sentiment — Van Artevelde persuaded Edward to put forward his trumped-up claim to the crown of France, and thus induced the towns to transfer their fealty from Philip to his English rival. It was therefore in his character as King of France that Edward came to Flanders. The alliance thus formed between the great producer of raw wool, England, and the great manufacturer of woollen goods, Ghent, proved of immense commercial importance to both parties. But as Count Louis sided with Philip of Valois, the breach between the democracy of Ghent and its nominal sovereign now became impassable. Van Artevelde held supreme power in Ghent and Flanders for nine years — the golden age of Flemish commerce — and was treated on equal terms by Edward, who stopped at Ghent as his guest for considerable periods. But he was opposed by a portion of the citizens, and his suggestion that the Black Prince, son of Edward III., should be elected Count of Flanders, proved so unpopular with his enemies that he was assassinated by one of them, Gerard Denys. The town and states immediately repudiated the murder; and the alliance which Van Artevelde had brought about still continued. It had far-reaching results; the woollen industry was introduced by Edward into the Eastern Counties of England, and Ghent had risen meanwhile to be the chief manufacturing city of Europe.

  The quarrel between the democratic weavers and their exiled Counts was still carried on by Philip van Artevelde, the son of Jacques, and godson of Queen Philippa of England, herself a Hainaulter. Under his rule, the town continued to increase in wealth and population. But the general tendency of later mediæval Europe towards centralised despotisms as against urban republics was too strong in the end for free Ghent. In 1381, Philip was appointed dictator by the democratic party, in the war against the Count, son of his father’s old opponent, whom he repelled with great slaughter in a battle near Bruges. He then made himself Regent of Flanders. But Count Louis obtained the aid of Charles VI. of France, and defeated and killed Philip Van Artevelde at the disastrous battle of Roosebeke in 1382. That was practically the end of local freedom in Flanders. Though the cities continued to revolt against their sovereigns from time to time, they were obliged to submit for the most part to their Count and to the Burgundian princes who inherited from him by marriage.

  The subsequent history of Ghent is that of the capital of the Burgundian Dukes, and of the House of Austria. Here the German king, Maximilian, afterwards Emperor, married Mary of Burgundy, the heiress of the Netherlands; and here Charles V. was born in the palace of the Counts. It was his principal residence, and he was essentially a Fleming. Other historical reminiscences will be pointed out in the course of our peregrinations.

  The old waterways, partially artificial, between Ghent and the sea, other than the circuitous route by the shallow Schelde, had silted up by 1827, when a ship canal was constructed to Terneuzen. This canal has since been widened and deepened so as to admit vessels of 1,700 tons; it has thus helped to some small degree to save the town from the fate of Bruges. But as its mouth lies in what is now Dutch territory, and as heavy tolls are levied, it is comparatively little used. Another and somewhat frequented canal leads to Bruges; but Ghent owes most of its existing prosperity to its manufactures (cotton, linen, engines, leather) and to its central position on the railway system.

  The important points for the tourist to bear in mind are these, however. Ghent during the Middle Ages was a merchant republic, practically independent, with its guilds and its belfry, the last of which was used to summon the citizens to arms in case of danger. It was also the chief manufacturing town in Europe, as Bruges was the chief commercial centre. By treaty with Edward III., Bruges was made the “staple” or sole port of entry for English wool: and this wool was woven into cloth for the most part at Ghent.

  Further details of the vicissitudes of Ghent can be found in Van Duyse, Gand, Monumental et Pittoresque.

  The chief objects of interest at Ghent are the Cathedral, with its great Van Eyck; and the Town Hall and Belfry. These can be tolerably seen in one day: but a stay of three or four days will not be too much to explore the curious nooks of the early city.

  B. THE CORE OF GHENT

  [The old town of Ghent lies on the island formed by the junction of the Lys and the Schelde, with their various backwaters (all now largely artificial). Near this point, but beyond the Lys, the Counts of Flanders early erected a strong castle, the Gravensteen or Oudeburg, beneath whose protection, aided by the two navigable rivers, merchants and weavers gradually settled. As at Bruges, the heart of the town, however, is purely municipal and mercantile in its architecture. The Town Hall, which was the meeting-place of the citizens, and the Belfry, which summoned them to arms or council, are the chief points of interest in the city. The Schelde is still tidal to its very centre.

  As most visitors will probably stop in one of the hotels on the Place d’Armes, near the S. end of older Ghent, I shall frankly take that square as our starting-point. It may facilitate recognition at first sight to add that the large square tower, visible to the R. from the Place d’Armes, is that of the Cathedral, while the tapering spire, crowned by a gilt dragon, belongs to the Belfry.]

  Go first on a tour of orientation through early Ghent. If you follow these directions implicitly, you can see everything important in one short walk. Cross the Place d’Armes diagonally to the N.E. corner, and follow the small and narrow streets which run due N. to the front of the Cathedral. Walk round the S. side of this, to form a first general impression, but do not enter it at present.

  Then, from the West Front of the Cathedral, take the Rue St. Jean straight before you. The tower with the gilded dragon which faces you as you walk is that of the Belfry. It was designed in 1183, about a century earlier than that of Bruges, but only erected between 1321 and 1339; it is a fine work in
the Early Gothic style. Its windows have been walled up. The tapering turret which crowns the tower is unfortunately modern, and of iron. On the very summit stands a huge gilded dragon, which universal tradition represents as having been brought from St. Sophia at Constantinople to Bruges by the Crusader Baldwin of Flanders, (1204), and removed as a trophy by the people of Ghent (under Philip van Artevelde) in 1382. It certainly appears to be of Oriental origin, but is stated on documentary evidence (discovered by M. Vuylsteke) to have been made in Ghent itself in 1380. If so, it would seem at least to be based on an Oriental model.

  The small building at the foot of the Belfry, now in course of (over) restoration, is the Cloth Hall, erected in 1424, a graceful but not very important Gothic edifice (of the Decorated period), with niches vacant of their statues. The concierge of the Belfry now has a room in it. Application must be made here to mount to the summit. (1 franc, or 2 for a party.) Dark and steep.

  The view is extensive and beautiful, but not quite so striking as that at Bruges. The principal buildings of the city lie just below you: beyond, all Flanders. The chimes are celebrated. The chief bell is known as Roelandt.

  Now turn round into the Botermarkt or Marché au Beurre to the right, and inspect the Belfry again from the little bay in the corner opposite. This is the best near view of the tower. The portal to the R. was formerly the entry to the town prison, beneath the Belfry, now in course of complete restoration. In its gable is a too-famous 18th century relief (the Mammelokker) representing the Roman daughter feeding her father from her breast at the window of a prison, and doubtless intended to excite the charity of passers-by. It certainly serves no other function, for it is neither beautiful nor decorative.