ny pupils. His influence was felt at once, and Francois Navez
(1787-1869) was the chief one among his pupils to establish the
revived classic art in Belgium. In 1830, with Belgian independence and
almost concurrently with the romantic movement in France, there began
a romantic movement in Belgium with Wappers (1803-1874). His art was
founded substantially on Rubens; but, like the Paris romanticists, he
chose the dramatic subject of the times and treated it more for color
than for line. He drew a number of followers to himself, but the
movement was not more lasting than in France.

Wiertz (1806-1865), whose collection of works is to be seen in
Brussels, was a partial exposition of romanticism mixed with a
what-not of eccentricity entirely his own. Later on came a
comparatively new man, Louis Gallait (1810-?), who held in Brussels
substantially the same position that Delaroche did in Paris. His art
was eclectic and never strong, though he had many pupils at Brussels,
and started there a rivalry to Wappers at Antwerp. Leys (1815-1869)
holds a rather unique position in Belgian art by reason of his
affectation. He at first followed Pieter de Hooghe and other early
painters. Then, after a study of the old German painters like Cranach,
he developed an archaic style, producing a Gothic quaintness of line
and composition, mingled with old Flemish coloring. The result was
something popular, but not original or far-reaching, though
technically well done. His chief pupil was Alma Tadema (1836-), alive
to-day in London, and belonging to no school in particular. He is a
technician of ability, mannered in composition and subject, and
somewhat perfunctory in execution. His work is very popular with those
who enjoy minute detail and smooth texture-painting.

In 1851 the influence of the French realism of Courbet began to be
felt at Brussels, and since then Belgian art has followed closely the
art movements at Paris. Men like Alfred Stevens (1828-), a pupil of
Navez, are really more French than Belgian. Stevens is one of the best
of the moderns, a painter of power in fashionable or high-life
_genre_, and a colorist of the first rank in modern art. Among the
recent painters but a few can be mentioned. Willems (1823-), a weak
painter of fashionable _genre_; Verboeckhoven (1799-1881), a vastly
over-estimated animal painter; Clays (1819-), an excellent marine
painter; Boulanger, a landscapist; Wauters (1846-), a history, and
portrait-paint