MUSÉE ROYAL DES BEAUX-ARTS

ANTWERP

THE Musée Royal des Beaux-Arts of Antwerp was erected in 1879-1890. The ground floor is occupied by the sculpture gallery, views and studies of old Antwerp and the Rubens Collection founded in 1877, which consists of reproductions of most of Rubens's works. The great vestibule de Keyser is decorated with paintings, the subjects of which are drawn from the Antwerp School of Art. The Picture Gallery is on the first floor and includes about eight hundred pictures. To those gathered from the churches and suppressed monasteries of Antwerp, the Hôtel de Ville and the Steen, were added the Collections of Burgomaster Van Ertborn in 1840, and the Baroness Van der HeckeBaut in 1859.

The strength of the gallery lies in Rubens and the works of the early Flemish school. A Calvary, dated 1363, belongs to the very fount of the art. The chief masterpieces are John Van Eyck's St. Barbara and Virgin and Child; Roger Van der Weyden's Seven Sacraments; Memling's Christ as King of Heaven; Massys's Entombment; Clouet's Francis II.; Rubens's Coup de Lance, Adoration of the Magi, Portraits of Rockox and Wife, Prodigal Son, Communion of St. Francis, and St. Theresa; Van Dyck's Pietà; Hals's Fisher Boy; Jordaens's Family Concert; Antonello da Messina's Crucifixion; and Portrait

of Abraham Graphaeus and St. Norbert, by Cornelis de Vos.

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John Van Eyck's Virgin and Child

may be noticed for the red and opaque quality of tone. Finish and minuteness characterize the panel in a marked manner, but its chief feature of interest is that in it we find the only point of contact between the schools of Bruges and Cologne. This Virgin and Child seems inspired by the larger picture at Cologne, painted, it is believed, by the celebrated Wilhelm.”—(C. and C.)

St. Barbara, seated on the ground, pensively turning the leaves of a book, though unfinished, is a most attractive work.

"In her right hand she holds a palm. Her ample robe lies in folds about her; in the background is the tower, her emblem, a conspicuous landmark in a landscape of hills dotted with trees. The sky is colored, the rest of the picture merely indicated by minute contour, showing how careful the master was to leave nothing to chance.”—(C. and C.)

Roger Van der Weyden's famous triptych, the Seven Sacraments, consists of a central panel occupied by the Eucharist; on the right wing Baptism, Confirmation and Confession; and on the left, Ordination, Marriage and Extreme Unction. The central panel represents the interior of a Gothic church treated so realistically that one seems actually within the building. The light, sifting through the windows and arches of the nave and apsis, brightens the scene which is so strangely conceived.

"A cross almost as high as the vaulting is elevated in the church in the second transept. Jesus here again submits to the horrors of death and the sacrifice on Golgotha is repeated. The Son of Man is not carved on the Cross, but is represented as alive, perishing as of old, for the salvation of the world. Mary Magdalen and Mary Salome

are upon their knees at the Cross, the first regarding Christ with grief, and the second turning away to wipe her tears. As for the Virgin, she cannot support the terrible spectacle, and faints in the arms of St. John. Behind these groups and behind the Cross, a priest officiates at an altar, the back of which is against the jubé, and elevates the monstrance that holds the emblem of the divine immolation. The symbol is therefore connected with the Sacrifice by an audacious disregard of probability and of chronological order. On an altar you see the statue of the Virgin holding her son; and before them a real angel in adoration: St. Peter, St. Paul and St. John occupy the brackets. In this work the painter has combined the real and the unreal with great boldness.”—(A. M.)

The wings, each of which contains three little pictures, are equally admired.

"The details of the architecture and sculpture that adorn the central nave, the little figures in the far distance are all painted with correct minuteness, and harmonize with the whole. The heads are animated with an extremely dramatic passion, or are marked by pious serenity: they are all marked by an individuality that can not be forgotten. The delicate angels, cast into the air like birds taking flight, possess an elegance peculiar to Roger, although he borrowed them from Van Eyck, who seems to have taken them from the Cologne School: for we meet almost similar ones in the pictures of Master Wilhelm and Master Stephan.”—(W. B.)

A small Annunciation is attributed also to Roger Van der Weyden.

"This enables one to appreciate with what ingenuous grace Roger interpreted the initial mystery of the Redemption. This little picture is a sort of miniature, very brilliant with its bed with green canopy and scarlet coverlid and the beautiful contrasts of the white and blue robes of the angel and the Virgin."-(F-G.)

There is also a portrait of Philip the Good, on a green background: probably a replica of a lost work.

St. Christopher, by Thierry Bouts, must not be neglected; and a Nativity, by his son, Albert, merits attention.

Memling has three fine portraits, and three altarpieces. In one of the latter, the Virgin stands with the Child in the nave of a Gothic cathedral. She is of gigantic proportions, reaching up to the triforium. She wears a green robe, red mantle and jewelled crown. In the choir, in the distance, angels are reading a book, and probably singing. In front of the Virgin are flowers in an ornate

vase.

The visitor's attention would be called to Memling's Christ as King of Heaven on account of its size, if for no other reason (23 feet by 5 feet). Christ occupies the centre of the central panel wearing a rich chasuble of brocade clasped with a jewel and a golden crown. His left hand rests on a globe surmounted by a large cross, and His right is raised in benediction. The rays of light behind His head form a star. Three angels sing from a book on each side of Him. On each of the wings are five angels with musical instruments.

Herri de Bles has a Repose on the Flight into Egypt of fine execution, with blue landscape, beautiful cloud-flecked sky and distant mountains. The type of the Virgin is charming, delicate, and very original. The verdure has the sombre tints that Memling loved, and the plants are painted with his precision, or even with superior sharpness. The foliage shows great patience and minute observation. To the right of Mary is a little cascade of very natural aspect. This is a work of high distinction.

The Burial of Christ is his masterpiece.

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"We find ourselves in a world where everything speaks out deeply, pointedly, and earnestly. Sorrow here reveals itself, not only on the surface of the figures, but we see it working inwardly in them, violently moving them, and breaking through their passive demeanour. The very structure of the body seems no longer the same, its usual soft outlines yielding to a passionate, quick action, the sudden predominance of which leads more to angular forms than to soft contours. Outward nature itself, the very landscape shows none but rugged forms. It is wild and rocky, and by projecting upwards from behind the group towards the vertical point of the picture leaves but little space for the sky."-(O. E.)

The Adoration of the Shepherds, by Frans Floris, is remarkable for facial expression: the heads are fine and gentle; and the accessories and animals are painted with fine breadth.

More famous is his Fall of the Rebel Angels, a phantasmagoric conception with its human forms of animal heads.

"Neither the Middle Ages, nor popular legend, ever saw in their nightmares a more strangely diabolical army. The dwellers of the sky, on the contrary, are of radiant and serene beauty; and their strength is mingled with a grace that is reminiscent of Italy."-(P. M.)

Christ Appearing to the Virgin and St. John gives us a high idea of the powers of Jacques van Opstal.

"Feeling, character, elegant forms and easy pose are here found in combination with true, intense and harmonious colour. The great pupils of Rubens could not have done better."-(A. M.)

One of Jan Snellinck's most interesting pictures is Christ Between the Two Thieves (1597).

"Rubens was twenty years old; but this work proves