Norwich bulletin., 1918-05-14
DESCRIBED THE WORKS
 OF FLEMISH PAINTERS
Miss Elizabeth Scott Was Speaker
 Before Art Association.


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 The Norwich Art Association met for the first time in several months on Monday evening at Slater hall. Mrs. William Birge presided and after the usual business, including the re- | ports Of secretary and treasurer. and that of Miss Nancy Lucas, chairman | of the Kate Morse Memorial tablet, | were read and approved, the attention Of the members was centered on the l interesting talk given by Miss Eliza i beth Scott on Flemish painting.
 At the last meeting of the associa I tion, Miss Edith Abbott of the Metro ] politan Museum spoke on the early l Flemish School, and last evenings lecture was continuation of this sub 1eet, dealing with the later artists, Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob Jordaens, Teniers. and Anthony Van Dyck
 These later painters made pictures on a more primitive child like order, with simple charm that later, more complex art does not possess. Art was at the zenith of it's development with Rubens. He sought for form, losing the simplicity of the earlier painters, for the Flemish were ma terialistic in their points of view. Ru- hens lived in an exciting. interesting time, and was both diplomat and artist
 !, No period of art can succeed unless there are patrons to appreciate it: the Renaissance in Italy would never 1 have ffourished without the De Medici | family, who were it's powerful pat l rons, nor the golden age in Greece, 1 had there not been wealthy and inter- ested people to buy. In America, we l have, at present, no golden age; that is not for lack of artists. but because l there are not the people who have a | fine and keen artistic sense of appre- citation.
 Rubens would never have been the artist he became, without his noble patrons. He himself was of noble birth, born in a small town near Co., logne, and educated in a Jesuit col
 lege in Antwerp. Early apprenticed
 as was the custom of those days, to a famous painter, he next went to
 Italy, then the center of art and lit-
 erature. Ohilip the Third was then on the throne, and through his inter est, Rubens started on the road tc fortune. In Italy, he studied the work } of Michael Angelo and the Venetian Tintoretto, so that his own painting . became finally a continuation of We. nedian art. Rubens learned to pain flesh tints. the most. difficult of al coloring, almost as luminously as ri tian himself, and there is something too, of the massiveness of Michael An
 Gelo's influence in his figures. Firing of the life in courts an; weary of diplomacy, Rubens finally re turned to Antwerp, where within tel n year he painted 1,500 pictures, thougI II but few of his paintings were don entirely by him, for he usually gay
 @ good deal of the detail work to hi !, best pupils. His most famous pictur Il l and the only one done by his ow l brush in entirety is the Descent fror " the Cross. This is also considered on ' of the masterpieces, of the world an r is in the cathedral at Antwerp unles ' on account of war conditions, it ha , been removed now to England fC I safety.
 > One of Rubens' pupils was Jaco , Jordaeus, who painted remarkably lih .ts, his master, with all his fire and colo . and somewhat less of his vulgarit
 Whiel an ardent imitator of Ruben
 he was never quite as celebrated. I Van Dyck was another of Ruben D famous pupils, by some called his rigl
 hand man. Going to Italy, he was il < fiuenced by the same artists who < Rubens reverenced but more so by u I' portrait painters He belongs to u e' f7th century and, journeying to Eny Y land, secured an audience with Xii -' Charles, who made him count painte
 His pictures all have dignity and nea -- ly as much richness and luminosity
 those of Rubens. He in turn passt
 on his art to Reynolds and Gainsbo ! ough and they to our own .famol
 American artist, Gilbert Stuart, wi % excells in his wonderful flesh tints.
 Van Dyck's religious paintings we
 more refined than those of Teuiers
 Rubens. He was able to paint a gre ae variety of subjects and is not on 2II important because he belongs to u .o Flemish artists but is also class ,o with the group of England's famo 10 portrait painters who in the course II time handed their craft down to u 99fe Americans. He was also a fano u etcher and master draftsman. Ie Slides for Miss Scott's very deligh s5 ful talk were procured from the Metr !" politan museum, and Miss Gilbert | the Academy faculty had charge of t
 lantern.
 At the June meeting of the associ
 tion it is hoped to have an exhibits E of modern American and Canadi
 ] DOStSrS