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xiii HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ART
painted numerous pictures. This story may be placed in the same
category as those of Diirer’s malevolent spouse, and of the licent-
iousness of the later Dutch painters. Memling was born (in Mainz)
about the year 1430; w , already actively engaged as paint-
er; in 1478 was permanently established in Bruges, a well-to-do
house proprietor in the Vlaminckdamm (now Rue St. George), and
died Aug. 11th, 1495. The little weknow of him personally isin some
measure compensated for by the great number of his works still extant.
Bruges, in particular, can boast of pos ing literally a Memling
museum. In the Academy is the Triptycl 1 with the St. C ‘hristophe Ty
in the Hospital of St. John the so-called St. John Altar, the Ad-
oration of the Magi, the Madonna with Martin Nieuwenhoven, the
portrait of Catharine Moreel, and, finally, the Ursula casket, the
most ornate and captivating illustration ¢ gendary lore bequeathed
by the art of this early period. In Memling, indeed, it may be said
the school of Van Eyck exhibits its highest attainments. Pure and
luminous colouring is combined with correct d ng; a keen percep-
tion of Nature with a coherent sense of the beautiful. Crowe and
Cavalcaselle, in their history of old Flemish Painter
ling as a lyric bard, and if his forms lack ide
to give them the impress of a winsome beauty. Hi
golden hair falls over the shoulders, or i
tresse
p
k of Mem-
} a
WS HOW
Madonnas, whose
thered up in luxuriant
, combine dignity with a sainted loveliness.
Painting flourished in the 15th century in oe no less than
in the southern Netherlands, though the earlier masters, such as
Albert van Ouwater, are represented but by few works. A more tangible
personality is that of Dierick Bouts (4465-1475), who removed from
Haarlem to Louvain, and with his industrious pencil announced the
fundamental characteristic of Dutch painting, in his delicate appre
ciation of landscape beauty. Gerard David, of Bruges (1483-1523),
in the 8., and Jacob Kornelissen or Jacob van Oostzanen (ca. 1506-
1530), in the N., may be regarded as offshoots of the older school.
Both are fine colourists and distinguial ed for the tender sweetness of
their female figures. Dramatic conception was foreign to both.
We have, indeed, abundant cause to deplore the ravages of
time, when we procee ed to sum up the number of authenticated
old Flemish pictures still in existence. Scarcely, indeed, do we
possess Mementoes of ten painters, such as enable us to form a
really distinct and vivid conception of their character as artis
yet this old Netherlands school was busy for eighty years ; nor was its
activity confined to Bruges and Ghent alone, but was shared by Ant-
werp, Brussels, and in the North by Leyden and Haarlem. One im-
portant cause of this absence of reliable accounts lay in the new
direction taken by the Netherlands school of painting in the 16th
century, which had the offect of depreciating the works of their
predec essors in the general estimation, and finally of committing
them to oblivion. For the Netl hetlands, like the rest of the North,
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