THE ART GALLERIES OF EUROPE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10761, 27 March 1897, Page 3

THE ART GALLERIES OF EUROPE.

By J. Elder Moultray,

ANTWEPtP

No. 6.—THE CATHEDRAL, THE ART

GALLERY, AND ST. PAUL'S OHUROR

I discoveied during my residence in Antwerp that if one wanted to stir up the phleg- . matic Belgian it was only necessary to inform ! him that Rubens was born in Germany, for every Baigian clings pertinaciously to the I idea that the great painter was born in Antworp. Now, in the Sterneu Gasse, in Cologne, . a stone tablet can be seen inserted into the will of a house bearing an inscription in .German to the eSect that » Our P«ter Paul Rubens was born in this house." When this first became known it roused-^he Belgians to the highest pitch of jealous fury, which no donbt seems puerile; but in Antwerp Rubens is spoken of with a respest amounting to reverence, and a magnificent monument has bflen erected to his memory in the Place Verte. The fact is that before he was born hia parents lived in Antwerp-until the great ! riots of 15US broke out-, rasulting in the i spoliation of 400 cbnrches in the low counties wrthm four days. John Robena fled with his wife to /Colcgae, and, nine years after, his seventh cnild was" born upon the day on which the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul was solemnised; so the future artist was baptised Peter Paul Kabens, and 10 years later, on the death of his father, his mother brought the family to Antwerp, and Rubens completed his education che/e, and laid the foundation ot his art training in the studio of Adam Van: Noort. After this he spent several years abroad, and in 1610 settled down in Antwerp and in bnilding a house there he encroached upon the land of the brotherhood of gunsmiths, and for compensation offered to paint a picture for their chapel in .the cathedral. Ine offer was. accepted, and this was the origin of that world-famous painting " The Descent, from- the Cros ß ," which I will now proceed to describe.. The picture shows the body of our Saviour being lowered from the cross by means of a white sheet supported by five figares, while the three Marys are represented in a group at the foot in various attitudes of grief. The scene possesses more pathos than Rubsas ÜBualiy introduced into his religious subjects, and it is remarkable tor the bold and vigorous style of colouring that being a branch of his profession in which he excelled, for it requires a great colouust indeed to paint flesh against pare white linen and yet keep ie from losing its value. This pasaage iv painting, however, has been successfully essayed by Rubens who has also adopted a composition rhat is generally recogaised as the most suitable for such a subject. I use the word " adopted "in its literal sense, for it is pretty well known that Rubens cribbed the composition from an Itaiian print, on which the signatures are given r,5 "Peter Parser, invenit- Hieronymns Wirix, sculpsit" The only difference I he i- i-d to have ms.de is in thn auitu.ie of I the M*gdalene. So it is to Peter Passer th» credit must be given for the exceedingly clever pose of the body, which has always baen acknowledged as the Bnest possible j rendering of the heaviness of death, whila to Rubeos belougg the honour of rescuing a ■ grand conception from oblivion and makin" it world famous. ° The canvas is an upright one, and the principal light falls obliquely across it from . the right top comer towards tha lelt corner'" at the foot. This light U composed of the body of our S-.vioar aurl the white Bheet upon which it. :&s!,«, and round this mass of oeutral tint Rubens- has arraugerl his chromatic scale as follows --Beginning at the base of the composition on the left, the two Marys are ahowu, both kneeling and I looking upwards—the fir,t wears yellow and j the nest green-coloured drapery ; continuing to tha rigas, Sr. John comas next, standing upright, dressed in a red robe, and above him, on !i laddar, more to the right, is a figure in a purple mantle; then, on the left of'the sbee-, right opposite the purple and red coioum. stands the Ma^de'ene draped in blue and on another ladder aoovo her is St Joseph of Arimatbea, weaving a red cap arJi yellow rob- ; while at the apex of the composition a figure with a, copper-coloured akin wearing a blue waist cloth i« shown leaning over -an arm of the crosi and clutchin°- a i corner of the sheet. The sombre tone of "he ! sky makes a splendid foil for tha rich colour of the .draperies, and it wilt be seen on examining this arrangement that the warm colour* are principally massed on the right ot the eaava?, and to counterbalance this the artist, has placed down upon the ground in | the ngiit corner a salver, with a sponge and j some oth< : r articles, which are all treated with I cool colours and serve to carry the cold tone ! of the M^gdelaaa's robes into the warmest part ot lha picture. I Now, if Titian's picture of "The Entombment in the Louvre were turned on its left I end and placed alongside of this work by Ru- ! bens, it would be at once seen that there "was a ! wonderful'resemblance between them with I regard to the colour arrangement. In both instances the neutral tints occupy the centre of the composition, and the colours all radiate from the white shoef, whils in each case the red robe of Be. John is contrasted with a green, and the two female figures beside the green are dressed in yeUowand blue drapery. ! There are other points of resemblance,' but I hays indicted enough to Rhow that there is ' an underlying principle whicil guides all J intelligent artists, for while the subjects are ! entirely different in the present instance, i and produced in one case by a Venetian and ! the other by a Flemish artist, representing i two distinct schools, yet the method of j colouring adopted by each is seen to be the i same ; and that this principle is not only ! confined to colour, but applies also to Ught I and shade, can be proved by a olose compari- I son of the composition* of Rambrandt with : " those of Titian, Raffaelle, Rubens, and ! others, which should effectually silence those j carping, would-be painters tyho scorn prin- ' ciples, and are guided by their own untrained ' imaginations. For the art of painting ia i fonnded upon principles, like all other pro- | fepsions, and they can be traced in the j works of all the standard artists for centuries back by every intelligent critic. I Two other maHCerpiecas by Rubens are ! ' shown in Jhe Cathedral—" The Klevation of j ! the Cross" in tha north transept, and ! \ an "Assumption," which he pßinfced as an : < altar piece: in both the colour is the principal t quality they excel in. ,

I Leonardo di Vinci's famous " H3ad of I Chri3t,-" painted upon whits marble, is hung ]in a side chapel. It has a crack across it caused by falling against tho back of a chair. It, is a refined example of that artist's style' . exquisitely finishsd and fall of feeling ' | The Arb. Gallery was the next place I ! visited. It is a. fine building, with a magnificent facade, right opposite to a large piece of waste ground, which is full of weeds, rank ! grass, and stones, rather detracting from the | appearance of the building. On entering the ! first thing to'impress the visitor is the fine I proportions of the entrance hall and the j grand sweep of the staircase leading up to the I gallery. The top of the staircase is the best point from which to view the large panels | representing the history of painting sculpture, and engraving "'The panels were painted by N. Da Keyser, and are full of careful drawing and rich colouring, besides containing several valuable portraits. Rubens, of course, occupies the place of honour in the collection. Two large rooms are pretty well filled with some of his finest works. To give a description of even the leading ones' would absorb too much space but the painting of "Christ Between the Two Thieves " undoubtedly shows the master at his best, both for the tragic realism that pervades the work and the natural rendering of fle3h tints. Indeed, it is impossible to look at this fice collection of masterpieces without being impressed with the artist's | marvellous fecundity, for we see portraits, j animals, landscapes, flowers, fruits, alle- | gorical, historical, and genre ''subjects all i treated with the same skill, and one can quite ; understand why Rubens, when acting as ambassador for the King of Spain at theEnglish Court, should have replied as he did when one of the most important personages in Eogland, on seeing him at work on a picture.said, "The ambassador of his Catholic Majesty, I see, amuses himself by painting sometimes." " I amuse myself by playing the ambassador sometimes," retorted the artist who always elevated the, dignity of art above mere rank. Nexc in importance to Rubens comes Van Dyck, whose works, though not so numerous, almost equal hig master's in quality. This i« particularly noticeable ia the canvas representing " Christ on the Cross,'- which, besides excellent technique possesses a pathos seldom apparent in his teacher's works. A magnificent example of animal painting attracts the attention of the visitor the instant he enters the gallery csntaining the works of modern painters. The scene represents buffalo* charging a lion. This is one of M. K. M. Verlat's masterpieces, an artist who man's his debut in Paris, I think, in the year>,lßsl, when his " Pepiu the Short Overcoming a Lion in the Circus " rendered him famous. In the present picture the agony on the face of the lion, which is getting the worst of the fight,- is well delineated, and the contortion of its body as the buffalo's horn is driven home is so realistic that one feels as though he were looking upon living animals, and I have seen nothing in-any gailery iv ! Europe, not even among Oadry's or Suyder's works, to equal the look of fury on the buffalo's face. But this artist's" skill in j rendering expression is not cocfined to animals, for iia the next room his " Dead Cbrist" is a most tonching representation of a well-worn theme, in which Mary is shown | weeping and St. John has a look of intense I anguish. The brush work in both pictures is bold and vigorous, and they are full of careful detail. Van Bree'3 " Death of Rubens" is a fine essmple of foreshortening, but 1 ratrreT- cola in tone. E. Verboeckfioven ia represented by one oE his highly-finished animal paintings. Ia De Vriecdt's canvas there is an ,< illustration of Sir Joshua Reynolds'sibe'ory, in which he advocates the S reduction of the cold colours in a composition to a minimum. The,picture shows an interior treated on a warm key of colour, the carpet, tablecover, and seat all being a deep red, while the solitary figure seated at the table is clad ia a white roba with bluish shadows, forming thg only spot of cold colour in the picture; but there is equal splendour in the painting by K. Oomg, which represents an interior the^exacc reverse of De Vriendt's, all the accessories being painted on a cold grey tone,'and the only spot of warm colour is introduced in fie robes of I the cardinal who sits in the apartment. Both j canvases display dexterous manipulation in the textures of the furniture, and both artists appear to possess equal delicacy of touch. Ona of the Sparest pieces of fieshpaipting in the gallery is "Godiva," by J. VanLerius. .-■■■■ ; n . ■ As, day or two before leaving Antwerp I spent several hours in St. Paul's Chnrch examining Rubens's famous painting " The Scourging of Christ." The scene is depicted in all its revolting brutality, and the artist has utterly, failed to produce the divine expression of the Saviour's face. It is this continuous repetition of materiality in his treatment of scriptural subjects, combined with the lavish use of glaring colours, that wearies one with Rubans's works. Instead of the spectator being spiritnally impressed, as-is the case when he looks at Raphael's representations of religious subjects, Rubens's treatment of such BC9IIBS dazzles him by his brilliant colouring, bold rendering of athletic forms and sensuous faces, and interest in the story is swallowed np ia admiration of the artist's, skill. The onlooker admires, but he is not solemnised; and a scriptural subject that appeals to the senses instead of the heart has failed in its mission.