File:Great pictures, as seen and described by famous writers (1899) (14598131229).jpg

Identifier: greatpicturesassx00sing (find matches)
Title: Great pictures, as seen and described by famous writers
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Singleton, Esther, d. 1930, ed. and tr
Subjects: Painting
Publisher: New York : Dodd, Mead and Company
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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c ofthe place : a great city, a great personal destiny, a famousschool, and ultra-celebrated pictures. All this is imposing,and our imagination becomes excited rather more thanusual when, in the centre of the Place Vert, we see thestatue of Rubens and, farther on, the old basilica whereare preserved the triptychs which, humanly speaking, haveconsecrated it. The statue is not a masterpiece; but it is he, in his ownhome. Under the form of a man, who was nothing but apainter, with the sole attributes of a painter, in perfecttruth it personifies the sole Flemish sovereignty which hasneither been contested nor menaced, and which certainlynever will be. At the end of the square is seen Notre Dame ; it pre-sents itself in profile, being outlined by one of its lateralfaces, the darkest one, on account of the rains beating onthat side. It is made to look blacker and bigger by beingsurrounded with light and low buildings. With its carvedstonework, its rusty tone, its blue and lustrous roof, its
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The Descent prom the Cross. Rubens. THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS 63 colossal tower where the golden disk and the goldenneedles of its dial glitter in the stone discoloured by thevapours from the Scheldt and by the winters, it assumemonstrous proportions. When the sky is troubled, as it isto-day, it adds all its own strange caprices to the grandeurof the lines. Imagine then the invention of a GothicPiranesi, exaggerated by the fancy of the North, wildlyilluminated by a stormy day, and standing out in irregularblotches against the scenic background of a sky entirelyblack or entirely white, and full of tempest. A moreoriginal or more striking preliminary stage-setting could notbe contrived. Thus it is vain for you to have come fromMechlin or Brussels, to have seen the Magi and the Calvary,to have formed an exact and measured idea of Rubens, oreven to have taken familiarities in examining him that haveset you at your ease with him, for you cannot enter NotreDame as you enter a museum. It is

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