The prince of the “Golden Age of Art” in Flanders was Petrus Paulus Rubens, who was born in the year 1577. While a student in Italy, a reigning Italian duke sent him on a mission to the King of Spain. The passport he was instructed to present to Philip III. introduced him as “Peter Paul, a Fleming, who will say all that is proper, like the well-informed man that he is. Peter Paul is very successful in painting portraits. If any ladies of quality wish their pictures, let them take advantage of his presence.” Wherever the young artist traveled--to Italy, to Spain, to France, to England, he was received with honors. Rubens was twice married, and his two wives and their children were often his models. He loved to paint sumptuous flesh and rosy faces, richly dressed children, cavaliers, gods and goddesses; and he delighted to make designs for the tapestries of Brussels and Arras. One of the pictures by which he is best remembered is the divine group, “The Descent from the Cross,” which has lately been restored to its place in the Antwerp Cathedral, after a period of over four years’ seclusion, safe from the enemy’s hands. So sure was the painter’s skill and so great his vogue that he became very rich and lived in a splendid house filled with rare objects of art. Many of his largest canvases were painted by pupils under his supervision. In all, he painted, or supervised, nearly two thousand pictures, some of them of huge dimensions. When he died in 1640 he was buried with great pomp in Antwerp, which proudly calls itself, “Rubens’s City.” Still another son of the city of Antwerp, Sir Anthony Van Dyck, was a pupil of the great Rubens, and very early became a master. Visitors to the notable galleries of the world invariably find there at least one example of Van Dyck’s artistry. He painted with special enthusiasm the faces and figures of kings and courtiers, the richly bedecked wives of wealthy burghers, and, also, spirited horses and dogs of high degree. Besides, he gained renown for his sensitively conceived religious pictures. Charles I. of England made Van Dyck his court painter, and the king and his nobles were often pleased to sit for him. But prosperity led to extravagance, and extravagance to impoverishment and a broken spirit. Van Dyck died when still a comparatively young man. He is declared by many critics to have been the most distinguished portraitist of the Flemish School--some say of any school and any century. Most amusing and characteristic are the pieces descriptive of Flemish life left to us by Jacob Jordaens and by David Teniers the Younger, who painted hundreds of pictures and rivaled the Dutchman, Jan Steen, as a delineator of fairs and homely festivities. WRITTEN FOR THE MENTOR BY RUTH KEDZIE WOOD ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 8, No. 3, SERIAL No. 199 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC. THE MENTOR · DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL AND HISTORY SERIAL NUMBER 199 BELGIUM THE BRAVE