ontent to keep within
bounds his portraits and feminine nudes are not without beauty. He was
fanciful rather than poetic, and the picture of Napoleon in hell
enduring the reproaches of his victims (why should they be there?) is
startling. Startling, too, are the tricks played on your nerves by the
peepholes. You see a woman crazed by hunger about to cook one of her
murdered children; beheaded men, men crushed by superior power, the
harnessed body of Patroclus, Polyphemus devouring the companions of
Ulysses, and other monstrous conceptions, are all painted with
reference to the ills of the poor. Anton Joseph was a socialist in
sentiment. If his executive ability had been on a par with his ideas,
and if those ideas had been less extravagant, the world would have had
one more great painter; but his nervous system was flawed and he died
a melancholic, a victim to misplaced ideals. He wished to revive the
heroic age at a time of easel pictures. He, the half genius, saw
himself outwitted by the sleek paint of Alfred Stevens. Born out of
his due time, a dreamer of dreams, Wiertz is a sad example of the
futility of looking backward in art.

BRUGES THE BEAUTIFUL

On the way up from Brussels to Bruges it is well to alight at Ghent
for a few hours. There are attractions enough to keep one for several
days, but as our objective was St. Bavon (St. Bavo, or Sint Baafs) we
did not stay more than the allotted time. And an adventurous time it
was. The Ostend express landed its passengers at the St. Pierre
station and that meant the loss of half an hour. The Cathedral is
reached by the tramway, and there we found that as an office was about
to be sung no one would be allowed in the ambulatory until after its
completion. It was pouring live Belgian rain without; already the
choristers in surplices were filing into the choir. Not a moment to be
spared! The sacristan was a practical man. He hustled us into a side
chapel, locked the heavy doors, and left us in company with the great
picture of the brothers Hubert and Jan Van Eyck. A monk knelt in
prayer outside, the rain clouds made the lighting obscure. We were
hemmed in, but by angels and ministers of grace. The chanting began.
Atmosphere was not needed in this large and gloomy edifice, only more
light. Gradually the picture began to burn through the artificial
dusk, gradually its glories became more perceptible. Begun by Hubert
in 1420 and finished by Jan in 1432, its pristine