Some Characteristic Examples of the Early Netherlands School.—The early Netherlands school is well represented by a few characteristic examples. Toost van der Beke, called "The Master of the Death of the Virgin Mary," may be studied by three pictures,—Saint Jerome in his Study, the Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus, and Portrait of Joris van der Helde (who died in Ghent in 1569). Dierick, or Dirck, Bouts is represented by The Apostle Saint John, which was formerly attributed to Rogier van der Weijden. Saint John is seated in a landscape writing the first verse of his Gospel on a sheet of paper, and a devil is tormenting him.
"The Master of the Half-Length Female Figures," a Dutch painter who is supposed to have worked at Bruges between 1520 and 1540, and who is known only by his pictures of saints on altarpieces and young women playing musical instruments, may be studied here in pictures called Golgotha and Young Woman Playing on a Lute. The latter is dressed in the costume of 1540, and she is singing from a music-book the words:
"Si jayme mon amyTrop, plus que mon mary,Se n'est pas de mervelles."
"Si jayme mon amyTrop, plus que mon mary,Se n'est pas de mervelles."
Golgotha represents the Crucifixion. The Cross, bearing the livid figure of Christ, is in the foreground, and beside it stand the Virgin on the left and St. John on the right. The landscape is very fine, but is entirely Flemish in character, although soldiers are supposed to be returning to the distant Jerusalem. At the foot of the hills Flemish cottages are noticeable, and the sky is gradually darkened from thesun on the horizon, until it gets very black just above the Cross.
This may be compared with The Crucifixion of Christ of the Netherlands school, an altarpiece of the sixteenth century, formerly attributed to Bernard van Orley (died in Brussels in 1525). Like the former, it presents a green landscape with horsemen wending their way to the distant Jerusalem. The Virgin and St. John are kneeling at the foot of the Cross, and in the clouds are two female saints, God the Father, and the dove representing the Holy Ghost.
[Names will be found indexed under the surname, not under the prefix thereto; as, Dijck, van, Heem, de.]