WIERTZ, v?trtz, ANTOINE JOSEPH ( 1806-65 ). A Belgian painter. Ile was horn at Dinant, and at the age of ten painted a portrait without any previous- instrnetion in art. When twelve years old he is said to have discovered for him self the art of wood-engraving. At fourteen he began to study at the Aeademy of Antwerp muter lierreyns and Van making Rubens his model. and in 1832 won the Prix de Rome. In Italy he modeled his art upon Michelangelo, and as the fruit of his assiduous reading of Homer lie produced, in 1835. an enormous canvas, the "Combat Over the Body of Patroclus." thirty feet in length, with more than a dozen life-size figures. The picture. viewed by countless artists of all nations, protium] a deep impression, and Thor waldsen pronouneed the young artist a giant.
On his return Wiertz settled first at Lii‘ge, and in ISIS at Brussels. xvhere he painted his masterpiece, "The Triumph of Christ," and where, in L850, the Government built for him, after his own design, a gigantic studio, now known as the Alusise \Viertz. in which all his historical, allegorical, and ideal pictures are united. and which he bequeathed to the nation. There he executed the most remarkable of his purely ideal creations and his realistic pictures, the most original and interesting of all his works.
There he also carried on chemical experiments, resulting in the discovery of a new process of painting. combining the advantages of oil and fresco, which he called peinture mate, or painting with a dull surface. Always seeking to give visi ble expression to an idea, Wiertz's undisciplined imagination often indulged in morbid represe»ta lions, the mere titles of which will indicate their character: "A Second After Death," "The Child Burned," "Precipitate Inhumation," "The Suicide," "Hunger. Folly, and ('rime." "A Scene in Hell," "Thoughts and Visions of a Head Cut Off." He was about to depict the history of the human race in a series of epic pictures, when death summoned him from the midst of his labors, while still in the vigor of his power. Among his many literary productions, brought out in swift success' . may be cited Velogr de Rubens (IMO), and L'ecole flamande de prin-ture (1863), which was crowned by the Royal Academy of Belgium. For his biography, consult: Watteau (Brussels, 1865), and Labarre (ib., 1867) ; the sketch in the Art Journal (London. 1869) ; and Atkinson. in the Portfolio (ib., 1875).