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1xxvill ART IN BELGIUM AND HOLLAND
These leaders, most of whom have joined the great majority,
are followed by a considerable number of highly remarkable and
in most cases younger sculptors, of whom we can name only a few.
Count Jacques de Lalaing (b. 1858), who is a successful painter
also, and Thomas Vingotte(b. 1850), who isbest known as a portrait-
sculptor, have shown themselves to be versatile and fertile workers.
The busts of Belgian authors and artists by Jules Lagae (b. 186
are still more finished than the works of Vincotte. Charles Samuel
(b. 1862) is the sculptorof one of the most popular worksin Belgium,
1 the group of Eulenspiegel and
Coster (p. 142). In the Bru
(b. 1854) is
ele on the monument to De
Museum Guillaume Charlier
sented by his figures of fishermen, Paul Dubois
(b. 1859) by a figure of a Seated Lady, which attracted attention in
Paris, and Pierre Braecke (b. 1859) by a pathetic group entitled
‘The Pardon’. In most of these artists a vigorous realism prevails,
but in the tenderly sympathetic female figures by Victor Rousseau
(b. 1865) a deliberate conventionalism is obvious. The strange style
of Georges Minne (b. 1867), with its reversion to Gothic forms,
has found its adherents. The observant visitor to Brussels, who
carries on his studies not only in the Museums but also in the streets
and squares (Botanic Garden, Square Ambiorix, Avenue Louise, etc.),
will find recurring cause for admiration in these modern Belgian
sculptures, which may perhaps be inferior to the sculptures of Paris
in number, but not in average ability.
In comparison with this rich development in painting and sculp-
ture, ARCHITECTURE in Belgium has rather lagged behind. The
Belgian architects, like those of other countries, designed in the
accepted styles, frequently, however, without independent mastery
of the earlier style but with an indolent reliance on Parisian models.
The leading architect inthe Empire style was Louis Roelandt
(1786-1564) of Ghent, who built the University there (long con-
sidered the finest of its kind), the Palais de Justice, and the Theatre,
and impressed his style on entire quarters of the town. Tielman
Suys the Elder (4783-1861) and L. E. A. Damesme of Paris, archi-
tect of the Théatre de la Monnaie, designed in the same style at
Brussels, Subsequently, especially after the laying out of the Inner
Boulevards, an enormous building activity developed in Brussels,
during which the classical style with a leaning towards the style of
Louis XVI. prevailed at first, while recourse to the Flemish Re-
naissance style occurred only occasionally at a later period. Among
the outstanding buildings in the former st are the imposing Passage
St. Hubert by J. P. Oluysenaar (14847), the National Bank by Henri
Beyaert and Wynand Janssens (1864), the almost too elaborately
decorated Exchange by Léon Suys the Younger (4874), and the
Museum by Alphonse Balat (1882). In the no les ‘flourishing Ant-
werp the Palais de Justice by Louis Baeckelmans (1875), the Museum
by J. J. Winders and Fr. van Dyck (4879-90), and many other |