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Searchology Directory 03
Page 02
The opening up of these Catacombs has brought to light many most interesting relics of primitive Christianity. In these Christian cemeteries and places of worship there are signs not only of the deep emotion and hope with which they buried their dead, but also of their simple forms of worship and the festive joy with which they commemorated the Nativity of Christ. On the rock-hewn tombs these primitive Christians wrote the thoughts that were most consoling to themselves, or painted on the walls the figures which gave them the most pleasure. The subjects of these paintings are for the most part taken from the Bible, and the one which illustrates the earliest and most universal of these pictures, and exhibits their Christmas joy, is "The Adoration of the Magi."
While the French explorer, Champlain, was sailing along the shores of the lake which bears his name, another equally adventurous spirit, Henry Hudson, was on his way to the western world. Hoping to open a passage to India by a voyage to the north, Hudson, an English navigator, offered in 1609 to sail under the authority of the Dutch East India Company. Driven back by ice and fog from a northeast course, he turned northwest. Searching up and down near the parallel of 40 degrees, he entered the mouth of the great river which perpetuates his name. He found the country inviting to the eye, and occupied by natives friendly in disposition. The subsequent career of this bold mariner has a mournful interest. He never returned to Holland, but, touching at Dartmouth, was restrained by the English authorities, and forbidden longer to employ his skill and experience for the benefit of the Dutch. Again entering the English service and sent once more to discover the northwest passage, he sailed into the waters of the bay which still bears his name, where cold and hunger transformed the silent discontent of his crew into open mutiny, and they left the fearless navigator to perish amid the icebergs of the frozen north.
Memling (1425?-1495?), one of the greatest of the school, is another man about whose life little is known. He was probably associated with Van der Weyden in some way. His art is founded on the Van Eyck school, and is remarkable for sincerity, purity, and frankness of attitude. As a religious painter, he was perhaps beyond all his contemporaries in tenderness and pathos. In portraiture he was exceedingly strong in characterization, and in his figures very graceful. His flesh painting was excellent, but in textures or landscape work he was not remarkable. His best followers were Van der Meire (1427?-1474?) and Gheeraert David (1450?-1523). The latter was famous for the fine, broad landscapes in the backgrounds of his pictures, said, however, by critics to have been painted by Joachim Patinir. He was realistically horrible in many subjects, and though a close recorder of detail he was much broader than any of his predecessors.
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