Wiertz, ANTON JOSEPH

Wiertz, ANTON JOSEPH, painter, was born at Dinant, 22d February 1806, and studied at Antwerp and Rome. In 1836 he settled in Liège, and in 1848 at Brussels, where he died 18th June 1865. His original artistic ideal was to combine the excellences of Michelangelo and Rubens; and his efforts in this direction are visible in his pictures of 'The Fight of Greeks and Trojans round the Dead Body of Patroclus,' 'The Disobedient Angels,' 'The Death of St Denis,' 'Eve and Satan,' 'The Flight into Egypt,' and 'The Triumph of Christ'—some of them very large canvases. As he could not persuade himself to sell such pictures, he maintained himself now and later by painting portraits. About 1848–50 he developed a new technical method which he called Peinture Mute; and now he began to paint totally different subjects—speculative and mystical pieces, dreams and visions, and the horrible outcome of a morbid imagination—premature burial, suicide, madness, execution, sensations after death. There were genre pictures also which were only eccentric—'Quasimodo,' 'The Young Witch,' and even pleasing and kindly pictures—'The Maid at her Toilet,' 'The Confession;' and he also left some sculptures. In 1850 the state had built for him a large studio in Brussels, and at his death this became, by an arrangement between the state and his heirs, the Musée Wiertz, one of the sights of the city. There are monographs by Labarre (1866) and Claessens (1883).