proportion; whilst even Salisbury spire is only about four hundred odd
feet. Immediately below the parapet is the enormous skeleton
clock-face, the proportions of which are reproduced on the pavement of
the market-place below. The carillons in this tower are an extravagant
example of the Belgian passion for chiming bells. Once safely inside
the church, and the monster tower forgotten, and we are able to admire
its delicate internal proportions, and the remarkable ornament of the
spandrels in the great main arcades of the choir. Unfortunately, much
of this interior, like that of St. Pierre at Louvain, is smothered
under half an inch of plaster; but where this has been removed in
tentative patches, revealing the dark blue "drums" of the single,
circular columns of the arcades, the general effect is immensely
improved. One would also like to send to the scrap-heap the enormous
seventeenth-century figures of the Apostles on their consoles on the
piers, which form so bad a disfigurement in the nave. The treasure of
the church is the great "Crucifixion" by Van Dyck, which is hung in the
south transept, but generally kept covered. To see other stately
pictures you must go to the church of St. Jean, where is a splendid
altar triptych by Rubens, the centre panel of which is the "Adoration
of the Magi"; or to the fifteenth-century structure of Notre Dame au
dela de la Dyle (the clumsy title is used, I suppose, for the sake of
distinction from the classical Notre Dame d'Hanswyck), where Rubens'
"Miraculous Draught of Fishes" is sometimes considered the painter's
masterpiece. It is not yet clear whether this noble picture has been
destroyed in the recent bombardment. Even to those who care little for
art, a stroll to these two old churches through the sleepy back-streets
of Malines, with their white and sunny houses, can hardly fail to
gratify.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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