ously in Holland. In Belgium there were not so
many nor such talented men, but some of them were very interesting in
their work as in their subjects. Teniers the Younger (1610-1690) was
among the first of them to picture peasant, burgher, alewife, and
nobleman in all scenes and places. Nothing escaped him as a subject,
and yet his best work was shown in the handling of low life in
taverns. There is coarse wit in his work, but it is atoned for by
good color and easy handling. He was influenced by Rubens, though
decidedly different from him in many respects. Brouwer (1606?-1638)
has often been catalogued with the Holland school, but he really
belongs with Teniers, in Belgium. He died early, but left a number of
pictures remarkable for their fine "fat" quality and their beautiful
color. He was not a man of Italian imagination, but a painter of low
life, with coarse humor and not too much good taste, yet a superb
technician and vastly beyond many of his little Dutch contemporaries
at the North. Teniers and Brouwer led a school and had many followers.

In a slightly different vein was Gonzales Coques (1618-1684), who is
generally seen to advantage in pictures of interiors with family
groups. In subject he was more refined than the other _genre_
painters, and was influenced to some extent by Van Dyck. As a colorist
he held rank, and his portraiture (rarely seen) was excellent. At this
time there were also many painters of landscape, marine, battles,
still-life--in fact Belgium was alive with painters--but none of them
was sufficiently great to call for individual mention. Most of them
were followers of either Holland or Italy, and the gist of their work
will be spoken of hereafter under Dutch painting.

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING IN BELGIUM: Decline had set in before the
seventeenth century ended. Belgium was torn by wars, her commerce
flagged, her art-spirit seemed burned out. A long line of petty
painters followed whose works call for silence. One man alone seemed
to stand out like a star by comparison with his contemporaries,
Verhagen (1728-1811), a portrait-painter of talent.

NINETEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING IN BELGIUM: During this century Belgium
has been so closely related to France that the influence of the larger
country has been quite apparent upon the art of the smaller. In 1816
David, the leader of the French classic school, sent into exile by the
Restoration, settled at Brussels, and immediately drew around him
ma