The Spell of Flanders

The strategy of the early part of the present war did not call for a protracted defence of Tournai, with the result that, as this is being written, the old city is reported to have suffered little or no damage. In view of the frequency with which it had been contended for in former wars it is to be hoped that this one—which has so far been more destructive than all previous wars put together—will pass quaint old Tournai by and that the great cathedral with its five towers and marvellous stone carvings may be spared for generations yet to come.

CHAPTER XIII

SEVEN CENTURIES OF TOURNAISIAN ART

The citizens of Tournai of to-day have given to their beautiful city the name of “Ville d’Art.” To be sure, the same title is claimed for Bruges and Ghent, for Antwerp and Malines. The first two are justly proud of their many beautiful monuments of the past and their associations with the work of the early Flemish painters, Antwerp of its connection with the later development of painting in Flanders and the most artistic of the early printers, Malines of its lace and its splendid examples of religious architecture and art. Tournai, however, has a broader title to the phrase than any of them in that the artistic activities of its gifted sons have not been confined to one medium or two, but have been independently developed along half a score of different lines and during a period covering more than seven centuries. Not only is the city a rich repository of the artistic productions of past ages, but it is still more notable in having been one of the most prolific producers of beautiful and artistic things. To the true connoisseur a stay of several weeks in this fine old border town would be none too long to afford opportunity to study all of its collections and rummage in out-of-the-way corners for stray specimens that the dealers and bargain hunters have overlooked. Unfortunately, neither the Professor nor I can lay claim to more than a rudimentary knowledge of such matters and in the chronicle of our rambles in the City of Art there may be much to make the judicious grieve. It is not, however, so much in order to give an account of what we saw that this chapter is written as in the hope that it may suggest how much there is to see for those whose eyes are better trained and more discriminating than ours.

Tournai looms large in the history of early Flemish painting, for it was here that the next important group of masters after the Van Eycks appeared. As early as the first half of the fourteenth century paintings on cloth were executed at Tournai, followed by what was termed “flat painting” for panels. About 1406 the first of the great artists whose names have come down to us settled at Tournai. This was Robert Campin. He acquired the right of citizenship in 1410 and died in 1444, being thus a contemporary of the Van Eycks. He is known to have painted many works, but until recently none of these had been definitely identified. Now, thanks to the earnest and patient study of Belgian scholars, he seems likely to be given his rightful place as one of the greatest of the early Flemish masters—after having been completely forgotten for nearly five hundred years! His most important work is an altarpiece in the possession of the Mérode family at Brussels, while the Frankfort Museum and the Prado at Madrid contain some fine examples of his skill.

It is known that Robert Campin was the master of two other Tournai artists, Rogier Van der Weyden and Jacques Daret, of whom the former soon far surpassed his teacher in renown. Daret entered the atelier of Robert Campin in 1418, when a lad of fourteen, obtained the title of apprentice in 1427, and became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in 1432. One of his pictures, a panel showing the Nativity, was in the collection of the late Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan. Van der Weyden, whose Walloon name was Roger de la Pasture, became one of Campin’s apprentices in 1427—the same date as Daret—and was admitted to the guild of the painters at Tournai in 1432. He spent much of his time at Brussels, however, and is sometimes considered as belonging to that city rather than Tournai. A “Descent from the Cross” now at the Escorial is his most famous picture. It was painted for the Archers’ Company at Louvain and a copy of it, made by the master himself, was hung in the Church of St. Pierre in that city. About 1430 Van der Weyden was commissioned to paint four large panels for the Hall of Justice in the new Hotel de Ville at Brussels. Two of these showed Trajan, the Just Emperor, and the other two depicted the Justice of Herkenbald, and for more than two centuries the series was regarded as the finest group of paintings in the Low Countries. They were destroyed at the bombardment of Brussels in 1695, but tapestries copied from the originals still exist in the Museum at Berne, having been captured by the Swiss when Charles the Bold was defeated at Granson.

In 1443 the artist began what in the judgment of the art critics was his most important work, an altarpiece representing “The Last Judgment” for the chapel of a hospital at Beaune, near Dijon in Burgundy, where it still remains. The museum at Antwerp contains a triptych of the Seven Sacraments by this master, showing the interior of a cathedral suggestive of that of Tournai—and, in fact, it was for the Bishop of Tournai that it was originally painted. Nearly every important art gallery in Europe contains one or more works by Van der Weyden, who not only was very industrious, receiving numerous orders from the great men of his day, but fortunate in having most of his masterpieces preserved from the destruction that overtook so much of the work of the early Flemish artists.

The former Cloth Hall of Tournai, erected in 1610, was completely and very successfully restored in 1884, and is now used to house an admirable little collection of paintings and a museum of antiquities. The paintings are, for the most part, the work of Tournai artists, and most of its three hundred and eighty titles are of local rather than international interest. There are several works, however, of the highest rank, and the museum as a whole serves admirably to illustrate the fact that the traditions and inspiration of the first great masters of Flemish painting, whose work has made the name of Tournai illustrious for all time, have never been wholly forgotten in their native city. To be sure, there is nothing to represent Robert Campin or Jacques Daret, nor had the caretaker ever heard of either of them—a fact hardly to be wondered at, since the works of the former have not yet been fully identified by the critics. Van der Weyden is credited with a “Descent from the Cross” in the museum catalogue, but many critics hold this to be a copy of a lost work by Hugo Van der Goes. Those in charge of the museum have wisely included some excellent photographs of the more famous works by Van der Weyden in the leading European galleries—a plan that might well be followed with respect to the other notable works by Tournaisian artists. The masterpiece of the collection is the well known “Last Honours to Counts Egmont and Horn,” by Louis Gallait, the greatest of Tournai’s modern artists, whose statue stands in the little park before the railway station. A replica of this fine but gruesome work was painted by the artist for the Antwerp museum. The Tournai museum contains nearly a dozen other works bequeathed to the city by this painter, including several admirable portraits—a branch in which he was especially skilful. The powerful “Abdication of Charles V” by this master hangs in the Brussels museum, and his notable “Last Moments of the Comte d’Egmont” in the museum of Berlin.

Equally fine in a very different way, but less widely known, is a spirited painting by a comparatively unknown artist, Van Severdonck, representing the Princess of Epinoy valiantly defending a breach in the walls during the siege of Tournai in 1581. We were unable to obtain a photograph of this admirable work as it is so hung that it is difficult to get a good light upon it. A fine portrait of St. Donatian is attributed in the catalogue to Jan Gossaert or Mabuse (from Maubeuge where he was born). By some critics it is assigned to Bellegambe, who was born at Douai in French Flanders and was a contemporary of Gossaert. The museum also contains works by Hennebicq, who painted the historical picture of Philip Augustus granting a charter to the city of Tournai in the Hotel de Ville; Hennequin, the teacher of Gallait; Stallaert, whose “Death of Dido” is in the museum of Brussels, and several other natives of Tournai who are less well known. From Robert Campin, who settled at Tournai about 1406 and died in 1444, to Louis Gallait, whose three great masterpieces were painted between 1840 and 1850, and to Stallaert and Hennebicq, who laid aside their brushes in the first decade of the present century, there extends a period of five hundred years during which the noble art of painting has been practised and taught at Tournai by men of commanding genius—a record in the history of art that no town in the world of similar size has ever equalled.

It is worthy of remark, in passing, that the art of sculpture which was practised at Tournai with such notable success as early as the thirteenth century, and steadily thereafter for several hundred years, has not survived to the present day. There are no modern sculptors in the list of Tournaisian artists, but the cathedral is a veritable museum of the stone carvings of the past. The men of the chisel, moreover, must be credited with giving some of the inspiration that made the work of the early artists of the brush so notable. Van der Weyden, particularly, shows the influence of sculpture and a marked appreciation of its effects in the framework and backgrounds of many of his pictures. Moreover, for several centuries the sculptors of Tournai enjoyed a renown that extended throughout Flanders and northern France. In the churches of Tournai and of many other cities examples of their work can be seen that show a continuous record of achievement from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries.

Closely allied to the carvers of stone were those who worked in metals and of these Tournai had its full share. A street of the Goldsmiths (rue des Orfévres) near the Grande Place indicates the importance of that industry in ancient times. The best example of this branch of Tournaisian art is to be found in the treasury of the cathedral. This is the superb Chasse, or Reliquary of St. Eleuthereus, which is considered to be one of the finest products of the goldsmith’s art during the Middle Ages. While the name of the maker of this masterpiece is unknown, it is unquestionably of Tournaisian origin and was completed in 1247. Built in the form of a sarcophagus, and made of silver, heavily gilded, it is almost bewildering in the richness and intricacy of its decorations and filigrees. At one end is a large seated figure of Christ, at the other of St. Eleuthereus, while the sides contain figures of the Virgin and the Apostles. Around, above and below these chief figures the artist has placed a labyrinth of minor ones, of churches and landscapes, of columns, arches and architectural embellishments, all carved with a richness of design that cannot be adequately described. Still older, for it dates from 1205, is the Chasse de Notre Dame, another treasure of the cathedral. This was made by Nicolas de Verdun, a citizen of Tournai, and is of wood, painted and adorned with curious bas-reliefs representing incidents from the New Testament. A third chasse, which on account of its great value is kept under lock and key in the treasury, like that of St. Eleuthereus, is called the Chasse des Damoiseaux. It is made of silver and bears in relief, and enamelled, the arms of some of the patrician families of the city in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the Confrerie des Damoiseaux held many brilliant tournaments in Tournai and other cities. This chasse, the keeper told us, was not made at Tournai, but at Bruges. Although very beautiful, it is not considered so notable a work of art as its companion.

During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Tournai rivalled Dinant as a producer of fine copper and brassware, and in this industry the artistic instincts of its citizens soon led them to produce pieces of remarkable distinction. One of the finest of these is the baptismal font in the church of Notre Dame at Hal, made in 1446. The artisans of Tournai turned out a prodigious number of fine products of the copper-smith’s art during the two centuries mentioned—lamps, candlesticks, chandeliers, funeral monuments, crucifixes and other religious articles; and, in fact, it was not until the eighteenth century that this industry declined, only to give place to the manufacture of gilded bronze ware.

The cathedral and the museum of antiquities contain some choice examples of another great Tournaisian art industry of the Middle Ages—the manufacture of rich tapestries. During the fourteenth century the renown of the products of Tournai in this field was already considerable, and between 1440 and 1480 its artisans surpassed even those of Arras. In richness of colouring, diversity and sprightliness of subjects, beauty of design and workmanship, the tapestries of Tournai rank among the finest art productions of the Middle Ages. In 1477, when Louis XI seized Arras and dispersed its workmen, many of them fled to Tournai, Audenaerde and Brussels, establishing the industry in those cities. Tournai, where it had already made great progress, was the first to benefit by this emigration and for a time became the leading tapestry-making centre in Europe. It was the school of Tournai that was the true forerunner of the still more famous tapestry weavers of Brussels in depicting historical and mythological scenes of the utmost vivacity and richness, while the ateliers of Audenaerde specialised more largely in quieter pastoral scenes and landscapes. Philip the Good, the most fastidious connoisseur of his age, ordered several tapestries at Tournai, including the history of Gideon in eight panels to decorate the Hall of the Order of the Golden Fleece. In the cathedral the most notable of the Tournai tapestries illustrates vividly the story of Joseph, while one of the best in the museum depicts the history of Abraham—the angels announcing the birth of Isaac. The border of a Tournai tapestry usually bears the mark of the ateliers of that city, a castle tower, which is plainly to be seen on the one last mentioned. The cathedral also possesses a remarkable tapestry of Arras, made by Pierrot Féré in 1402, and depicting incidents connected with the lives of St. Piat and St. Eleuthereus and the plague at Tournai. This masterpiece originally hung above the stalls in the choir, and more than half of it has been destroyed at one time or another. The remainder has been placed in a continuous panel, like a panorama, around a semi-circular chapel back of the treasury, and constitutes one of the most curious relics of the mediæval art to be seen in Europe. According to some authorities the designs for this work were drawn by one of the artists of the Tournai school of painters from which Van der Weyden subsequently received his instruction. At all events the scenes are extremely naïve, and the artist has inserted sundry little devils who are giving expression to their contempt of the various religious ceremonies depicted in some of the sections in a manner that, to say the least, is most unconventional.

The wars and troubles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries very nearly extinguished the art industries of Tournai, the number of master-weavers of tapestries declining from two hundred and fourteen between 1538 and 1553 to forty in 1693, and twenty-nine in 1738. It was only a few years after the last date, however, when a new art industry became established in the city. In 1751 a native of Lille, named François Péterink, began the manufacture at Tournai of fine porcelains. Dinner sets elaborately decorated and daintily formed, vases, statues and statuettes of “biscuit” equal to the finest products of Sèvres, Saxony or England, were turned out in considerable quantities for more than a century, and the porcelains of Tournai became so renowned that princes vied with one another to secure these works of art. It is still possible for the collector to secure some of these fine products, the trademarks being a rude castle tower or two crossed swords with tiny crosses at their intersecting angles. In the finest tableware these are usually in gold, but red or some other colour should not be despised, as the genuine Tournai ware is becoming rare and already brings high prices. These marks, it should be added, have been imitated, and the amateur will do well to consult expert advice before purchasing.

Still another noteworthy art industry of Tournai merits at least a word in passing. From the very earliest period after the art of making stained or painted glass was invented the ateliers of the “Ville d’Art” have excelled in this fine branch of handicraft. During the fifteenth century Tournaisian artists made the seven stained glass windows in the transept of the cathedral that depict in glowing colours the history of the contest between Childeric and Sigebert and the donations and privileges granted to the bishop and the cathedral by Chilperic. Not only are these scenes of the utmost interest historically, but the student of costumes and customs during the Middle Ages and the student of early Flemish art will both find in them abundant material for study. It has already been said that the cathedral of Tournai is in itself a history of Flemish architecture covering a period of well-nigh a thousand years. It is also a veritable museum of Flemish art, and especially of Tournaisian art, in almost all of its many branches.

In the eighteenth century the apparently inextinguishable artistic spirit of Tournai found expression in the production of carpets that recalled the best period of its tapestry weavers. The carpet in the cabinet of Napoleon at Fontainebleau and the celebrated carpet of the Legion of Honour, which was shown in the French pavilion at the recent exposition at Turin, were made at Tournai during this period. At the same epoch the goldsmiths and coppersmiths, whose activities had never entirely ceased during the centuries of trouble, began once more to turn out their artistic products in considerable quantities, nor have these ateliers entirely ceased operations at Tournai to this day. Truly the name “Ville d’Art” has been fairly won and kept by this little city, if seven centuries of almost uninterrupted artistic endeavour and achievement count for anything!

It is a somewhat remarkable feature of modern Belgium, however, that while its cities abound in beautiful and artistic things, the common people—both the working classes and the bourgeoisie, or fairly prosperous middle-class of small merchants and manufacturers—seem to have very little interest in pictures or works of art, and little or no desire to acquire them. The average Belgian home is utterly bare of ornament, save perhaps a crucifix or a religious image or chromo—if these can be termed ornamental. Reproductions of the fine masterpieces of painting and statuary in which this little country is so rich are incredibly scarce and difficult to procure—save only the very famous pictures, of which copies have been made to sell to tourists in the larger cities. Even these the native Belgian apparently never buys, and the art stores carry very few coloured prints of moderate price such as are to be seen everywhere in the United States. In fact, of those we saw a considerable proportion were of American manufacture. Of course these remarks do not allude to the stores handling original paintings by ancient and modern masters, costly water-colours and etchings. These are purchased in Belgium, as everywhere else, by the wealthy class, whose homes are as rich and artistic as any in the world. It is the absence of interest by the two classes first mentioned that seems to me so remarkable in a country that for centuries has been passionately devoted to art in all its manifestations, and, for its population and area, is without doubt the world’s largest producer of beautiful things.

On the other hand, the Belgian of even the humblest social standing is invariably fond of flowers. In the cities every woman on her way to or from market buys a bouquet for the table, while in the country there is no garden without its little flower-bed, or flower-bordered paths, or rambling rosebushes climbing up the high brick garden wall or arching over the entrance. This shows an intense and inborn love of the beautiful. Why is it, then, that men and women whose daily lives are spent in creating beautiful things—rare lace, fine wood-carvings, rich brass or copper ware—are content with homes that are as bare of ornament as any prison cell?

CHAPTER XIV

THE FALL OF CHARLES THE BOLD—MEMLING AT BRUGES

There are few careers in history more fascinating, more spectacular, more dramatic, than that of the last Duke of Burgundy who ruled over Flanders—Charles the Bold. Heir to dominions that included all of what is now Belgium and Holland, nearly a third of France, and portions of what is now Germany, Charles was by far the most powerful of the feudal lords of his day, surpassing the King of France, and even the Emperor in the splendour and wealth of his court and in the number of feudal princes and knights whom he could summon to his standard. He not only had dreams of becoming a king himself, but was, on one occasion, offered a crown—the Emperor Frederick III proposing to make him King of Brabant. This he refused—a serious error, for he could easily have extended his royal title, once legally acquired, over the rest of his dominions.

In “all the pomp and pageantry of power,” however, Charles was every inch a king—magnificent in his hospitality, exceedingly ceremonious and punctilious in court etiquette, and fond of showing his vast power on every occasion. On the other hand, he was profoundly ignorant of the fact that the real source of his wealth and strength was in the great industrial communes of Flanders, Brabant and Liége, and the cruelty with which he destroyed the cities of Liége and Dinant cost him the affection and good will of all his people. His great antagonist was Louis XI of France—also one of the most picturesque figures in history—but the exact antithesis of Charles in almost every respect. While Charles never received a delegation unless seated on a throne, the loftiness and grandeur of which filled every eye, Louis dressed plainly—often wearing the grey cloak of a pilgrim, and almost invariably a pilgrim’s hat, with a leaden image of some saint in the hat-band. On one occasion, when he paid a visit to his subjects in Normandy, riding in company with the gorgeous Duke of Burgundy, the peasants exclaimed, “Is that a King of France? Why, the whole outfit, man and horse, is not worth twenty francs!”

Charles, like his father, held his ducal court wherever he might happen to be—both princes often carrying a lengthy train of baggage, including even furniture and tapestries, from one castle to another. Bruges, however, is identified with some of the most important events of his career, and he held his court there much oftener than at the ancestral capital of Burgundy, Dijon. During the last years of the reign of his father, Philip the Good, Charles acted as Regent, and it was during this period of his rule that he astonished and terrified Europe by the ferocity with which he avenged an insult to his parents’ honour by utterly destroying the prosperous city of Dinant and slaughtering most of its male inhabitants. On his accession to the ducal throne, however, the great communes of Ghent, Bruges, Malines and Brussels were able to extort from their new Duke all of the privileges that his father had taken away during his long reign. Charles granted these with fury in his heart, vowing openly that before long he would humble these presumptuous burghers. Fortunately for the liberties of the Flemish towns, their Duke’s attentions were speedily called elsewhere and he found no opportunity to carry out his threats.

Fomented by the emissaries of Louis XI, the turbulent citizens of Liége—already a large and prosperous manufacturing town, as advanced in the metallurgical arts as the Flemish cities were in the textile industries—rose in insurrection against their Bishop-Prince, an ally of Charles. With an army of one hundred thousand feudal levies Charles quickly suppressed this revolt. The following year Louis ventured to place himself in Charles’ power by paying him a visit at his powerful castle of Péronne. This famous historical incident is brilliantly described by Sir Walter Scott in Quentin Durward. To the king’s alarm and very extreme personal danger, the people of Liége took the moment of this visit to rise again. Charles was furious, and, not unjustly considering Louis to be the author of this attack on his authority, had that monarch locked up in a room in the castle. Nor was he placated until Louis signed a treaty still further extending the power of the Dukes of Burgundy in France, and agreed to join Charles in the expedition to punish his unruly subjects. This time the city after being captured was given over to the half-savage Burgundian soldiery to be sacked, some forty thousand of its inhabitants perishing.