DOI issue:
No. 52 (July, 1897)
DOI article:Sparrow, Walter Shaw: Constantin Meunier: the artist of the Flemish collieries
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18389#0102
Const ant in Meunier
teries, near our furnaces, and in our factories, in all there his Flemish vigour and manliness are for all
of which busy centres of tragic industry there is a that, and they contrast oddly with the effeminate
religious art of the best kind—the art of the re- languor by which, here in England, an athletic
liffion of daily human toil. Well, it is this religion country, so many literary and artistic productions
that M. Meunier is inspired by, has interpreted to are now characterised. It is well to remember
us and in doing so, he has stirred us with an art that in Flanders the national character has always
which will assuredly hand down to posterity the reflected itself thus in the Fine Arts ; whereas in
character, the genius, the life and the tragedy of England, as in ancient Rome, those very arts were
these first great anxious days in the seemingly scouted as unmanly. The drama held sway
eternal era of steam with its machinery. amongst us, and foreigners painted our pictures.
Two or three of the other illustrations are rough At last the theatre began to languish; the old
sketches, mere notes of hand, made rapidly in the magnificent virility perished slowly out of it; and
open air. Yet in these slapdash croquis^ as in the at the same time, as during the decline of Rome,
completed works, we find
every one of the artist's f - _ -- .,..„ /7 . - ......-----^—......,„......—T~*l
favourite virtues and graces.
The note of manliness—a
fine, rude, unpolished man- ■
liness—must detain us here
a moment or two. It is a
quality that Meunier shares j • .
with nearly all the Flemish ~
artists of to-day; for the
spirit of Rubens, with its [ a
swaggering, lustful promise ' /^%j*t ■
of strong generations yet to ' ,.....jK ■
come, is still brilliantly alive
in the Flemish genius. #„ s&Ssfc f^f^.^r:.
Whilst England has been , £ yJmi • ' ■■■■
producing limp pre-Raphael- \
ites and neurotic artists in ' V. f\jk
all kinds, Belgium has re- w '% '
newed, both on canvas and
England of ours. It is the
^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^p ^^^^
en very vulgar, is rarely "colliers going to their work"
tender and imaginative ; but from a painting by constantin meunier
85
teries, near our furnaces, and in our factories, in all there his Flemish vigour and manliness are for all
of which busy centres of tragic industry there is a that, and they contrast oddly with the effeminate
religious art of the best kind—the art of the re- languor by which, here in England, an athletic
liffion of daily human toil. Well, it is this religion country, so many literary and artistic productions
that M. Meunier is inspired by, has interpreted to are now characterised. It is well to remember
us and in doing so, he has stirred us with an art that in Flanders the national character has always
which will assuredly hand down to posterity the reflected itself thus in the Fine Arts ; whereas in
character, the genius, the life and the tragedy of England, as in ancient Rome, those very arts were
these first great anxious days in the seemingly scouted as unmanly. The drama held sway
eternal era of steam with its machinery. amongst us, and foreigners painted our pictures.
Two or three of the other illustrations are rough At last the theatre began to languish; the old
sketches, mere notes of hand, made rapidly in the magnificent virility perished slowly out of it; and
open air. Yet in these slapdash croquis^ as in the at the same time, as during the decline of Rome,
completed works, we find
every one of the artist's f - _ -- .,..„ /7 . - ......-----^—......,„......—T~*l
favourite virtues and graces.
The note of manliness—a
fine, rude, unpolished man- ■
liness—must detain us here
a moment or two. It is a
quality that Meunier shares j • .
with nearly all the Flemish ~
artists of to-day; for the
spirit of Rubens, with its [ a
swaggering, lustful promise ' /^%j*t ■
of strong generations yet to ' ,.....jK ■
come, is still brilliantly alive
in the Flemish genius. #„ s&Ssfc f^f^.^r:.
Whilst England has been , £ yJmi • ' ■■■■
producing limp pre-Raphael- \
ites and neurotic artists in ' V. f\jk
all kinds, Belgium has re- w '% '
newed, both on canvas and
England of ours. It is the
^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^p ^^^^
en very vulgar, is rarely "colliers going to their work"
tender and imaginative ; but from a painting by constantin meunier
85