Year: 1874

There is one gallery of pictures in
Brussels, says correspondent, SO
uniquein character that they will stay
in the memory when better things
have faded out. This is the Wiertz
Museum. The great picture is the
struggle for the body of Patroculus.
except that he looks very dead indeed;
but the point of the picture is the aw-
ful strain Of two sets of men. both
bound to conquer or die in the at
tempt. It is like looking on duel
when you sympathise with both sides.
There is passion enough in it for the
whole battle of Waterloo. This is al
most the only picture into which the
artist has not infused so much oddity
and bitterness as genius. The op-
preston Of earthly authority is gradu-
ally shown in giant grinding wo-
mans shoulder between his teeth, and
treading helpless mortals under foot.
Perhaps the most curious idea is ex-
pressed in the Man of the Future"
an enlarged and noble figure of a man
holding in his big hand, and regard
ing with pitying smile, the haubles
that have been most valued by man.
kipd-coins, flags, orders, gems and
firearms. Two angels look on him
with sympathetic wonder. Near this
is figure of Napoleon in the flames
of hell, while his victims hold out
broken limbs to him as the trophies
of his career. A bitter hatred of Ma
poleon and French despotism run
through the whole gallery; and yet
the artist, against his will, has given
to Napoleon a face so sad and noble
that the sympathy of the beholder
cleaves to him, and not to those who
suffered by him. Every contrivance
of reality. One looks through knot
hole in board fence into a charnel


house, where a woman, too soon
buried, in cholera times, is just fore
ing up her coffin lid, and realizing the
horror of the situation. Through
another hole is seen a mother, driven
mad by starvation in Napoleon s CAM
paigns, who is cutting up her child to
boil it in kettle. The curve of the
little cheek, half covered in her apron,
is the only softening touch in the ter
riblc picture. Rut not all these fan
tastes are horrible. In corner, a
painted girl smiles at you, through a
crack in a painted door, so naturally
that you smile back at her before you
can realize that she is only a picture.
In another, more lovely than words
can tell, a mothe0 just arrived in
heaven, recognizes the child that had
gone before. Wiertz was a wonder
full flesh painter. Some of his nude
figures of women remind one Of Lady
Mary Montaeues conclusion when
she saw Turkish women in a bath
II was here convinced of the truth OF
reflection that l have often made,
that if it were the fashion to go naked
the face would be hardly observed
and many noted beauties would have
to abdicate their thrones Wiertz
was low-born and poor. and the iron
early entered his soul to reappear in
his pictures, which are full Of scorn
and bitterness toward all the world
that called itself superior to him. He
is as vulgarly self-conscious in his ART
as Byron was in his poetry. He was
of that order of genius which, in liter.
ature, has produced Frankenstein, and
Vathek, Poe's stories, and some Of
Hawthorne's novels--a select few GU,
Of all humanity who are under sor


of opium influence from their birth
They love the world no better thar
the world loves them.