fin :•an Peers, the son of a popular Flemish poet, born in Bel gium, treats a similar class of subjects. Van Beers has gained a celeb rity akin to notoriety by his remarkable painting called La Sir\ne, rep r,:senting a lady handed down to a boat in order to embark on a yacht, which is seen lying at anchor. The precision of the lines in the drawing is so extraordinary that many insisted the picture was a painting from a photograph. The chief figure was cut out while the picture was on exhibition in the Salon at Paris, and an acrimonious newspaper dis cussion followed regarding the merits of the painting. It is now gen erally conceded that Van Beers owes his success to remarkable skill of eve and hand. Of the younger generation of aspirants to fame, none gives greater promise. Van Beers has a trick of eccentricity, no doubt, but the defect is one that will cure itself, for there is in him the stuff of a master who is capable of achieving popularity and success. We reproduce his Gros.iella (fig. 2).
Paul Jean Cla art of the Low Countries was noted at one time for its marine-painters, and there are still excellent painters in that depart ment in Belgium and Holland. The most noted is probably Paul Jean Clays, born at Bruges in 1819. His pictures are mostly effects of color, showing fine grouping of shipping, with great breadth and liquidity in the representation of water.
Hendrick Mesdag, born at Groningen in 1831, is, on the other hand, a painter who for the most part revels in windy effects, coast-scenes where the waves break thunderously on the beach, and bluff-bowed fishing boats run in for shelter with flapping sails before wild gray skies foretelling storm. A picturesque coast-scene of a more quiet effect is presented in his On the Ebb (j. 3). Mesdag and Andreas Achenbach of Dusseldorf are the most remarkable coast-painters of the age. They have given hints to two well-known American painters of similar scenes, Harry Chase (born in 1853) and S. S. Tuckennan.
Maurice Frederick Hendrick de Haas, born at Rotterdam in 1832, is a very able marine-painter of the Dutch school, but has for many years been identified with American art, his studio being in New York. Mr. de Haas has but few equals in compositions representing moonlight scenes at sea. His art is confined principally to the painting of large pictures, and his subjects are notable for their breadth and vigor. Among the numerous works of this most skilful artist we may mention Farraguis Ilea passing- the Forts below .,Vew Orleans, Storm on the Coast, Sunset at Sea, PIssing Storm, and After Mc Collision (fig. 5). De Haas is a relative of the famous cattle-painter J. H. L. r
...,. CC (1832-1880), who in this department rivals in vigor of treatment the celebrated French cattle painter Emile van Marcke (born in 1829).
Danich 1i1;ll/crs.—The marine-painters of the Low Countries find worthy rivals in the marine-painters of Denmark, who at the present time form a distinct school of artists making a specialty of studying the varied aspects of the sea. No better marine-painters have existed. They have devoted themselves chiefly to effects at sea rather than on the coast, and give careful attention to the details of ships under all possible circum stances. While breadth, spirited action, and thorough knowledge of the subject are characteristic of all the members of this school, each has a distinctive style of his own. There are two galleries in London devoted exclusively to the exhibition and sale of works of Danish marine-painters. Among the chief members of this school are Anton Melbye (1822-1875), Neumann, and Carl Rasmussen (born in 1841). The latter has painted many Northern scenes, while the first delights in Mediterranean effects.
Joseph Henri Francois van closing this review of art in the north-western corner of Europe we may mention Joseph Henri Francois van Lerius, born at Boom in 1823 and died in 1876. He is widely popular for his romantic painting of Paul and Hrginia, in which the lovers are represented walking tinder a great palm-leaf which Paul holds over Vir ginia's head to shield her from the shower. Van Lerius began as a portrait painter, but abandoned that field for a class of sentimental compositions which were qualified to please the popular taste, and which he executed with no small degree of artistic ability. But occasionally his taste for the voluptuous led him into prurient suggestiveness. Esnzeralda and Haidee is one of the most beautiful works of this artist, and yet one of the most suggestive.
Pierre Olivier Joseph Coomans, a pupil of Baron Wappers, and one of the painters of Belgium best known abroad, was born at Brussels in IS16. Coomans has painted a number of distinctively historical episodes, and sev eral compositions suggested by his travels in Africa, but his reputation rests chiefly on his paintings of life in the classic times of Greece and Rome—a field in which he sometimes fairly rivals Gerome and Alma Taclema (q. ?.). Among his notable works are such lovely compositions as The Roman Maiden, Pythagoras lecturing before la Belle Theane, The De linquent, The First Step, and Content with Life (pl. 63, fig. t), an admi rable example of his art.