The Spell of Belgium Part 9

The Maison du Peuple in Brussels was established in 1881, with a capital of about one hundred dollars. It began, like the one in Ghent, as a bakery, and owned a dog and a small cart to make deliveries. At last accounts the society had over ninety dogs. It is amusing to read that these had their own kitchens, where their cooking was done, and their bathrooms, where they were kept clean.

And when one is speaking of the workers of Belgium, the dogs should not be forgotten, for the larger breeds were very useful members of the industrial system. Laundresses, bakers and vendors used them in distributing their wares, and they were of great service on the farm.

But perhaps the commonest sight was that of a dog hitched to a cart filled with shining bra.s.s and copper milk cans. They were all carefully inspected to see that their harness fitted properly, and that they were provided with a drinking bowl and with a mat to lie down on when they were tired.

The Government made a point, indeed, of seeing that conditions were as comfortable as possible for the animals. The poor cannot afford to keep a dog simply for a pet; there are no sc.r.a.ps from the table to feed him, because no thrifty housewife leaves any sc.r.a.ps; he must do his share and earn his keep like the others.

At a time when France laid a heavy tax on imported laces, dogs made excellent smugglers. They were kept for a time on the French side of the line, petted and well fed; then they were sent over into Belgium, where they were allowed to become thoroughly homesick. Skins of larger dogs were lined with contraband lace and tied on to them, and they were headed for home and set free. Of course they naturally sought their own firesides, and the lace went with them. When the ruse was discovered, over forty thousand of them were captured and put to death.

Since the war began, dogs have been of great service in dragging the mitrailleuses, the light machine-guns, as well as in helping their masters carry their household goods to a place of safety. The police dogs were wonderfully trained, and have been used by the Red Cross to find the wounded in remote places and to carry first aid.

The same high standards of efficiency by which Belgian workmen made a national reputation for their various manufactures showed also in the cultivation of the ground. The whole western part of the country was one vast market-garden, but it was no happy chance of soil and climate that made it so. Generations of unbroken toil on the part of a patient, skilful peasantry, equipped with the most primitive tools but with a positive genius for their work, were necessary. So recently as the first half of the nineteenth century there was a wild stretch of land west of the Scheldt known as the Pays de Waes, which was uncultivated and desolate. Today it is wonderfully fertile, its little truck farms supporting five hundred people to the mile.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SINCE THE WAR BEGAN, DOGS HAVE BEEN OF GREAT SERVICE IN DRAGGING THE MITRAILLEUSES."]

Flanders as a whole, indeed, had poor soil, often "an almost hopeless blowing sand." The method of reclamation usually began with the planting of oats, rye or broom. This was used three years for forage and then plowed in, after which the land became capable of producing clover. The rotation of crops was worked out with great care, according to the special needs of the soil. The Belgian wheat crop averaged thirty-seven bushels to the acre in 1913, while in the same year "up-to-the-minute"

America raised only fifteen bushels.

The soil is particularly suited to hemp and flax, the latter furnishing not only oil but fiber, of which the British markets bought ten million dollars' worth annually. Poppies were grown for oil. Tobacco yielded two tons to the acre, and white carrots eight hundred bushels.

The Flemish farmer did most of his work by hand, with no other implement than a spade, which has been called the national tool. The population was so large that human labour was cheaper than animal. In sixteen days a man could dig up an acre of land as well as a horse could plow it. A farmer was able to support himself, his wife and three children, keep a cow and fatten a hog, on two and a half acres. With another acre he had a surplus product to carry to market. A man with a capable wife and children could do all the work on six acres and have time left for outside interests. If he was fortunate enough to have horses they were the pride of his heart and he kept them always finely groomed and in the pink of condition.

The women of the country married early, raised large families, and worked hard. They were good managers, especially in the Walloon districts where they often carried on some industry besides their housekeeping. For centuries their chief employment was making lace. The Government established schools of housekeeping, where the girls learned domestic economy in every branch; they were sent to market, for instance, with six cents to buy the materials for a meal, which they afterwards cooked and served.

The Government indeed did everything it could to improve conditions in the country districts and to encourage farming. It established schools of agriculture, with dairy cla.s.ses for the girls, and aided in starting cooperative societies. Its policies were far-seeing and marked by a really paternal interest, as well they might have been, for to her st.u.r.dy peasants--and to the peasants' st.u.r.dy wives--were due the foundations of Belgian prosperity.

CHAPTER IX

TAPESTRIES

As we were intensely interested in tapestries we often went to the Museum to study and admire the most famous set in Brussels, an early Renaissance series of four pieces, called Notre Dame du Sablon.

These hangings ill.u.s.trate an old fourteenth-century story, which I condense from Hunter's delightful work on "Tapestries." Beatrix Stoelkens, a poor woman of Antwerp, was told by the Virgin in a dream to get from the church of Notre Dame a little image of the Madonna. In obedience to the vision she obtained the statuette and took it to a painter, who decorated it in gold and colours. After Beatrix had returned it to the church, the Virgin clothed it with such grace that it inspired devotion in all who saw it. Then Our Lady appeared a second time to Beatrix, and directed her to carry the statue to Brussels. When she attempted to get it, the warden of the church interfered, but he found himself unable to move, and Beatrix bore away the little Madonna in triumph. She embarked for Brussels in an empty boat, which stemmed the current as if piloted by unseen hands. On arriving at her destination, she was received by the Duke of Brabant and the magistrates of the city, and the precious little statue was carried in procession to the church of Notre Dame du Sablon.

This set bears the date 1518, when Brussels was no longer under a Burgundian Duke, but Charles V was ruler of the Netherlands. The designer of the set followed the Gothic custom of representing the story under the forms of his own day, so, instead of the Duke of Brabant, Philip the Fair, father of Charles V, is pictured receiving the Madonna from the hands of Beatrix at the wharf, Charles V and his brother Ferdinand are bearing it in a litter to the church, and Margaret of Austria, aunt of Charles, kneels in prayer before the niche where the sacred image has been placed.

When in New York it always gives us pleasure to go to the Metropolitan Museum to see the finest Belgian set in the United States, the Burgundian Sacraments, woven in the early fifteenth century. This splendid example of Gothic workmanship was made in the days when Philip the Good had brought the power of Burgundy to its zenith. When the great Duke wanted to have magnificent hangings for the chamber of his son (who was afterward Charles the Bold), he ordered a set of tapestries from the weavers of Bruges. All that remains of this splendid work of art is now in the New York Museum--five pieces, which form half of the original set. The complete series consisted of two rows of scenes, the upper seven representing the Origin of the Seven Sacraments, the lower, the Seven Sacraments as Celebrated in the Fifteenth Century. This set shows wonderful weaving, "with long hatchings that interpret marvelously the elaborately figured costumes and damask ground."

There are other exquisite tapestries in America, too, for the Committee of Safety in 1793 imported some American wheat into France, and when the time came to pay it proffered _a.s.signats_. Naturally enough, the Americans objected, but there was no money. "Then they offered, and the United States was obliged to accept in payment, some Beauvais tapestries and some copies of the Moniteur."

Tapestries required muscular strength, for the material was heavy, and so men were given this work in town workshops. The ladies did the needle, bobbin and pillow work in the castles and convents. True tapestry is always woven on a loom, and is a combination of artistic design with skill in weaving.

This tapestry industry was introduced into Western Europe in the Middle Ages by the Moors, but we can trace the art of making woven pictures to much earlier times. The ancient Romans had them. Ovid describes the contest in weaving between Arachne and Pallas, in which the maiden wrought more beautifully than the G.o.ddess. Pallas in anger struck the maid, who hanged herself in her rage because she dared not return the blow. The G.o.ddess, relenting, changed Arachne into a spider, and she continues her weaving to this day.

But a much earlier poet has described the making of tapestry. We read in the Odyssey that, when the return of Ulysses to his native land was long delayed, his faithful wife Penelope postponed a decision among the suitors who importuned her by promising to make a choice when she had finished weaving the funeral robe for Laertes, her husband's father. The robe was never completed, for each night she took out the work of the day before.

It is a very interesting fact that a Grecian vase has come down to us on which is a painting of Penelope and her son Telemachus. Penelope is seated at what the experts say is certainly a tapestry loom, though somewhat different from those used at a later day.

We have no large pieces done by the Greeks and the Romans, but many small bands for use as tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of robes. Some of these were woven by the Greeks as early as the fourth century B.C., others were made in Egypt under Roman rule some centuries later, and are called Coptic. From these one can trace the series through the silken Byzantine, Saracenic and Moorish dress tapestries to the Gothic fabrics of the fourteenth century.

The Flemish and Burgundian looms were those of Arras, Brussels, Tournai, Bruges, Enghien, Oudenarde, Middlebourg, Lille, Antwerp, and Delft in Holland. The value of the tapestry industry to Flanders may be judged from the fact that Arras, a city of no importance whatever, from which not a single great artist had come, led all Europe for about two centuries in tapestry weaving.

Although some fine pieces were woven in the fourteenth century, as far as known, only two sets of Arras tapestries of this period are left. One set is at the cathedral of Angers in rather bad condition, for they were not appreciated at one time, and were used in a greenhouse and cut up as rugs. Fortunately, they have been restored and returned to the cathedral. The other set of early Arras hangings is to be found at the cathedral of Tournai, in Belgium. A piece of this set bore an inscription--which has fortunately been preserved for us--stating, "These cloths were made and completed in Arras by Pierrot Fere in the year one thousand four hundred two, in December, gracious month. Will all the saints kindly pray to G.o.d for the soul of Toussaint Prier?"

Toussaint Prier, a canon of the cathedral in 1402, was the donor of the tapestries.

When Louis XI of France captured Arras, in 1477, and dispersed the weavers, Tournai, Brussels, Oudenarde and Enghien took up the work. The oldest Brussels tapestries known belong to the latter part of the fifteenth century. Two of these sets were painted by Roger van der Weyden and celebrated the Justice of Trajan and the Communion of Herkenbald. Some have tried to prove that other important tapestries were designed by the great primitives, but Max Rooses a.s.sures us the resemblance to their work comes from the fact that their characteristics, "careful execution, extreme delicacy of workmanship, and brilliancy of colour," pervaded every branch of art at that period.

Brussels and Oudenarde held the lead throughout the sixteenth century.

The Bruxellois wove vast historical compositions to decorate the palaces of kings; the weavers of Oudenarde produced landscapes, "verdures" and scenes from peasant life for the homes of burghers.

Tapestries are at their best as line drawings; when more complicated effects are sought "confusion and uncertainty follow." The finest ever woven were produced during the last half of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth centuries, when Gothic tapestries gradually ceased to be made and Renaissance pieces began to take their place. During that hundred years, when the weavers were most skilful and were still satisfied with line drawings, many of the finest tapestries combined the characteristics of both styles.

In the sixteenth century, the weavers had such marvelous skill, however, that they actually reproduced the shadow effects of Italian designs.

Even such great artists as Raphael and Michael Angelo drew cartoons, and stories of ten, twenty or even thirty scenes were woven, all showing the distinctive characters of Renaissance art. They combined breadth of composition and lively action with the introduction of nude figures and elaborate landscape and architectural settings. But in trying to copy painting too closely, they departed from the best traditions of tapestry technique, and deterioration was sure to follow in time.

After the desolating wars of the sixteenth century, when arts and industries revived under the Archdukes Albert and Isabella, Brussels weavers set up their looms again, and "Rubens brought new life into tapestry manufacture. He supplied the Brussels workshops with four great series--the History of Decius Mus, destined for some Genoese merchants; the Triumphs and Types of the Eucharist, ordered by the Infanta Isabella for the convent of the Clares at Madrid; the History of the Emperor Constantine, executed for Louis XIII; and the History of Achilles, for Charles I.... The Triumphs and Types of the Eucharist are the most powerful allegories ever created to glorify the mysteries of the Catholic religion."[4]

[4] Max Rooses.

Jacob Jordaens also designed tapestry cartoons, but the most popular artist among the weavers at the end of the seventeenth and in the eighteenth centuries was David Teniers. He did not himself make designs, but the manufacturers, especially at Oudenarde, borrowed his subjects, which were drawn largely from peasant and village life.

One reason why we have so few of the really antique tapestries is that in 1797 the market for them was so dead--owing to the increasing use of wall-papers and canvases painted in oils--that the French decided it would be better to burn them for the gold and silver they contained.

Accordingly, "One hundred and ninety were burned. During the French Revolution, a number of tapestries that bore feudal emblems were also burned at the foot of the Tree of Liberty." At this time, when they were not in fashion, many rare old hangings were cut up by the inartistic or the ignorant and used as rugs and curtains.

But in recent years, we are told, the Brothers Braquenie have set up a workshop at Malines, where they have produced a fine series for the Hotel de Ville in Brussels, called "Les Serments et les Metiers de Bruxelles." The cartoons for this set were made by Willem Geefs, the painter.

As to the material, there is a great difference. Gothic tapestries are composed of woolen weft on linen, or woolen on hemp warp, and are often enriched with gold and silver thread. These are not used today, as they are considered too expensive. Since the sixteenth century, Brussels, Gobelins, and Mortlake have used a great deal of silk. In the fifteenth century fifteen or twenty colours were employed, in the Renaissance period, twenty or thirty.

"Both high warp and low warp antedated the shuttle. In other words, they use bobbins that travel only part way across instead of shuttles that travel all the way across." The high warp loom was also in use before the treadle. "In the low warp loom the odd threads of the warp are attached to a treadle worked with the left foot, the even threads of the warp to a treadle worked with the right foot, thus making possible the manipulation of the warp with the feet and leaving both hands free to pa.s.s the bobbins. In the high warp loom, that has no treadle, the warps are manipulated with the left hand while the right hand pa.s.ses the bobbins back and forth. The term high warp means that the warp is strung vertically, low warp horizontally."

Both are woven with the wrong side toward the weaver. "The wrong side in all real tapestries is just the same as the right side except for reversal of direction and for the loose threads.... In the high warp loom, the outline of the design is traced on the warp threads with India ink from tracing paper, and the coloured cartoon hangs behind the weaver, where he consults it constantly. In the low warp loom, the coloured cartoon is usually beneath the warp, and often rolls up with the tapestry as it is completed."[5] In the eighteenth century, the low warp loom was considered better than the _haute lisse_, or high warp.

[5] The description of technique is quoted from Hunter's "Tapestries."

Great care has to be taken in dyeing the threads of the weft, which are much finer than those of the warp. Vegetable dyes, such as cochineal, madder, indigo, etc., must be used, for permanent colours can never be obtained with aniline dyes. The old Spanish dyes were considered the best. In this country, one sometimes gets the fine colours in an old Mexican serape or a prized Navajo blanket. The wool that is used to mend old tapestries in the American museums is coloured with dyes made by Miss Charlotte Pendleton in her workshop near Washington, which I have visited.

The Arras tapestries have a better and more attractive texture than any others. "Arras tapestries are line drawings formed by the combination of horizontal ribs with vertical weft threads and hatchings. There are no diagonal or irregular or floating threads, as in embroideries and brocades. Nor do any of the warp threads show, as in twills and damasks.

The surface consists entirely of fine weft threads that completely interlace the coa.r.s.er warp threads in plain weave (over and under alternately), and also completely cover them, so that only the ribs mark their position--one rib for each warp thread. Every Arras tapestry is a rep fabric, the number of ribs eight to twenty-four to the inch." The finely woven textures are not always considered the best. "The most marvelous tapestries of the fifteenth century were comparatively coa.r.s.e (from eight to twelve ribs), and of the sixteenth were moderately coa.r.s.e (from ten to sixteen)."

Many of the early Gothic tapestries had inscriptions woven at the bottom or the top, but had no borders. It was not until toward the end of the fifteenth century that they began to develop these. They first had narrow verdure edgings, until Raphael introduced compartment borders in the set of the Gates of the Apostles, the most famous tapestries of the world. The most noted cartoons in existence are the designs for this set, in the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington. Renaissance borders were much wider than the Gothic, and were filled with greens and flowers. At the end of the seventeenth century the borders took the form of imitation picture frames.

Gothic verdures are in reality coloured drawings in flat outline of trees and flowers with birds and animals. Renaissance verdures have more heavily shaded leaves and look more true to nature.

The majority of Gothic tapestries are anonymous as regards both maker and designer. With the Renaissance began the custom in Brussels and other Flemish cities of weaving the mark of the city into the bottom selvage, and the monogram of the weaver into the side selvage on the right. This custom was established by a city ordinance of Brussels in 1528. An edict of Charles V made it uniform, in 1544, for the whole of the Netherlands. After another century, weavers began to sign their full names or their initials in Roman letters, and monograms were discarded.

When the weavers of Arras took refuge in other countries, after the capture of that town by Louis XI, they went by thousands to England and France. In this way the French looms at Gobelins, Beauvais, and Aubusson were started, and those at Mortlake, in England.