Tag: belgium

Gustave Van de Woestijne

The Paintings of Gustave Van de Woestijne

Born at Ghent in August of 1881, Gustave Van de Woestijne was a Belgian expressionist painter whose depictions of humble rural life were shaped by philosophical reflections and avant-garde Western-European trends. While influenced by the Parisian avant-garde, Symbolism and Flemish Expressionism, Van de Woestijne created his own distinctive painterly style.

Gustave Van de Woestijne was the younger brother of writer, poet and art historian Karel Van de Woestijne who, upon the death of their father, oversaw his care. In his youth, Gustave studied at the Ghent Academy for the Fine Arts. Through his brother, he received an intellectual education that, at a young age, opened the door to a world of sculpture, literature and classical music.

In 1900 at the age of nineteen, Van de Woestijne traveled with his brother Karl to the small village of Sint-Martens-Latem on the banks of the River Lys where Karl, who had brought French symbolism to Belgium, founded a colony of loosely affiliated artists from the Ghent Academy. In the company of the First Group of Latem, Van de Woestijne developed artistically and painted biblical and rural life scenes, as well as sensitive portraits of village figures, family members and friends..

Gustave Van de Woestijne, like his brother Karel, organized his life as well as his art around philosophical reflections. He was concerned with existentialist questions that later became magnified with religion. After leaving Sint-Martens-Latem in 1905, he briefly entered the Benedictine Order in Leuven. However after four weeks, Van de Woestijne decided against the monastic life. He was too driven by creative desire to entirely devote his life to the church. Van de Woestijne instead used his painting skills and his palette of subtle earthly colors to portray the Catholic virtues of simplicity, humility and hope.

After leaving Leuven, Van de Woestijne relocated to Etterbeek, a municipality of Brussels and, later, the village of Tiegem in West Flanders. The memories of his stay at the River Lys artist colony still continued to influence both theme and style of his paintings. During the First World War, Van de Woestijne and his family lived in Wales where he spent time in the company of artists Valerius De Saedeleer and George Minna. He painted allegories of the war situation and numerous portraits, including those of his fellow artists. Van de Woestijne also was acquainted with businessman and art collector Jacob de Graaf, who became patron to him and other members of the Latem group. 

Gustave Van de Woestijne returned to Belgium in 1913 where he met Brussels art patrons David and Alice van Buuren who purchased their first painting by the artist. Between 1928 and 1931, the couple commissioned seven still lifes from Van de Woestijne for their modernist Brussels house. Eventually, David and Alice van Buuren acquired thirty-two works by the painter, a major part of Van de Woestijne’s oeuvre. 

Gustave Van de Woestijne’s 1910 Flemish portrait, “The Farmer”, had displayed the beginning of his movement towards modernism through its refined realism, large areas of color and its symmetrically composed plain background. Various trips to Paris had exposed Van de Woestijne to the artistic avant-garde innovations in the works of Picasso, Modigliani and Rousseau. It was after his return to Belgium that his work became more related to the Modernist movement. Van de Woestijne incorporated those avant-garde developments into his own techniques to create a  personal modernist style: a meditative form of symbolism with expressionist and cubist visual elements.

Upon the death of his brother Karel in 1929, Van de Woestijne took over his brother’s position as director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Mechelen and also taught in Antwerp and Brussels. He continued to paint, predominately Christian scenes with a more neutral palette, until his death. Gustave Van de Woestijne died at the age of sixty-five on the twenty-first of April in 1947 at the Belgian city of Uccle. His body is interred in the historic Cemetery of Campo Santo, Sint-Amandsberg, Ghent.

Works by Gustave Van de Woestyne are held in many private collections and public collections that include the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent, Van Buuren Museum & Gardens, and the Museum of Deinze and the Lys Region. 

Notes: Conceptual Fine Arts (CFA) has an article by Brussels-based curator and writer Evelyn Simons entitled “The Quotidian Avant-Garde of Gustave Van de Woestyne” on its website: https://www.conceptualfinearts.com/cfa/2020/08/31/gustave-van-de-woestyne/

The Museum of Fine Arts Ghent has a short article on Gustave Van de Woestijne in connection with its 2020-2021 collection exhibition of his work: https://www.mskgent.be/en/exhibitions/gustave-van-de-woestyne

A biography on Karel Van de Woestijne, considered possibly the most important post-symbolist poet to have written in the Dutch language, can be found on the Poetry International website: https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poets/poet/102-8508_Van-de-Woestijne

Top Insert Image: Gustave Van de Woestijne, “Self Portrait”, 1912, Oil on Canvas, 180 x 48 cm, Private Collection

Second Insert Image: Gustave Van de Woestijne, “Still Life with a White Jug”, 1922, Gouache on Paper, 76.5 x 55.5 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, Belgium

Third Insert Image: Gustave Van de Woestijne, “The Liquer Drinkers”, 1922, Oil on Canvas, 109.5 x 99 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium

Bottom Insert Image: Gustave Van de Woestijne, “Fugue”, 1925, Oil on Canvas, 80.5 x 80 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, Belgium

Henri Evenepoel

The Artwork of Henri Evenepoel

Born at the city of Nice in October of 1872, Henri-Jacques-Edouard Evenepoel was a French-born Belgium artist who became associated with the Fauvist movement. Fauvism was an art movement that emphasized simplification of the subject, unconstrained brushwork and pure, strong colors over the representational values favored by the Impressionists. Inspired by the teachings of Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau, Fauvist artists included Henri Matisse, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, and Georges Braque, among others.

Born into a cultured family, Henri Evenepoel initially trained at a small art school in Sint-Josse-ten-Noode before attending the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels between 1889 and 1890. He entered Paris’s Ecole des Beaux-Arts In 1892 where he studied under Gustave Moreau and became acquainted with fellow students Henri Matisse, Georges Rouault, Edgar Maxence, and Albert Marquet. Evenepoel’s first exhibition of work occurred in April of 1894 at the Salon des Artistes Français with the portrait “Louise in Mourning”, a standing pose of his cousin Louise van Mattemburgh. 

Evenepoel continued working in portraiture and exhibited four portraits in 1895 at the Salon de Champs-de-Mars, the annual exhibition of the Sociéte Nationale des Beaux-Arts. His favorite subjects were his family and friends often presented against a neutral background, a style influenced by James Whistler and Édouard Manet. Evenepoel also painted somber-toned urban and genre scenes, designed advertising posters, and produced lithographs and etchings. In 1897, he purchased a Pocket Kodak camera and became technically proficient in developing and printing his own work. Over the course of his short life, Evenepoel shot almost nine hundred photographs, both portraits and novel studio images. 

For health reasons, Henri Evenepoel decided to travel to Algeria in October of 1897 and remained there for a six-month stay. Over this period, he painted a series of Orientalist subjects, many of them street scenes painted in the bright colors of the Fauvist style. During his winter months in Algeria, Evenepoel’s first solo exhibition was held at the Brussels Cercle Artistique from December in 1897 to January in 1898. After returning to Paris in May of 1898, he began to achieve both commercial and critical success. 

During Evenepoel’s lifetime, most of the painters considered to be modernists were generically known as impressionists. Although a modernist in the choice of his subjects, Evenepoel was a realist more in line with the works of Gustav Courbet and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, who had influenced his Parisian scenes. Marked by a refined and poetic sensibility, Evenepoel’s works were centered on artistic and idealistic considerations rather than the basic presentation of the subject.

At the beginning of successful career as an artist, Henri Evenepoel died of typhus on the twenty-seventh day in December of 1899 at the age of twenty-seven. There have been several retrospectives of Evenepoel’s work, the earliest being in 1913 and 1932 at the Galerie Georges Giroux in Brussels. Institutions holding later retrospectives include Antwerp’s Musée Royal des Beaux-Arts in 1953 and Brussels’s Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts in 1972. 

Notes: An obsessive drawer, Henri Evenepoel traversed Paris on a daily basis while the city was preparing for the 1900 World Fair. He always carried a sketchbook with him and recorded all that he saw. The result was thousands of works from quick sketches to elaborate drawings of people and city scenes. In addition to sixteen paintings, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium houses over thirty drawings, several prints, letters from the artist to his father, and over eight hundred negatives which are currently being digitalized. 

The International Study Group has an article entitled “Henri Evenepoel, The Man and His Art” located at: https://isgbrussels.be/index.php/event/henri-evenepoel-man-and-his-art

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam holds a collection of twelve works by Henri Evenepoel: https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/prints/person/34602/evenepoel-henri

The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium contains a rich collection of Henri Evenepoel’s works on paper, mainly drawings, pastels, and watercolors executed between 1868 and 1914. An article on his life and work can be found at: https://fine-arts-museum.be/uploads/exhibitions/files/evenepoel_visitors_guide.pdf

Second Insert Image: Henri Evenepoel, “Orange Market at Blida”, 1898, Oil on Canvas, 81 x 125 cm, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

Bottom Insert Image: Henri Evenepoel, “Nude from the Rear in Gustave Moreau’s Studio”, 1894, Oil on Canvas on Panel, 47.2 x 36.5 cm, Private Collection

Jacques de Lalaing

The Paintings of Jacques de Lalaing

Born in London on the fourth of November in 1858, Jacques de Lalaing was an English-Belgian painter and sculptor who worked in a realistic, naturalistic style both as a portrait artist and creator of historical scenes. As a sculptor, Lalaing produced both allegorical and animal bronzes as well as memorial monuments. Along with sculptors Léon Mignon and Antoine-Félix Bouré, he established a distinctively Belgian tradition of animal art.  

Jacques de Lalaing was the younger son of Belgian diplomat Count Maximilien IV de Lalaing, a member of a noble southern Flanders family which played an important role in the history of the Netherlands. Jacques’s older brother, Charles Maximilien de Lalaing, became an important diplomat who served as Belgian Ambassador to four countries from 1899 to 1917. 

Lalaing received his academic training in England until 1875 at which time he relocated to Brussels, Belgium. He studied at the city’s Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts under genre and portrait painter Jean-François Portaels, the founder of the Belgian Orientalist school; historical and portrait painter Louis Gallait; and portrait painter Alfred Cluysenaar, best known for his monumental decorative works.

As a sculptor, Jacques de Lalaing trained under sculptor and medalist Baron Thomas Jules Vinçotte, sculptor to the court of King Leopold II, and sculptor Josef Lambeaux, known for his large bronze statues and marble bas-reliefs. Lalaing created the British Waterloo Campaign Monument in Brussels, a large edifice of bronze figures on a plinth of rusticated stone blocks, below which lies the bodies of seventeen fallen soldiers from the battles at Quatre Bras and Waterloo. He also designed the bronze horseman battle group at the Bois de la Cambre in Brussels as well as the twenty-two meter bronze pylon in Schaerbeek, originally made for the 1913 Ghent Exposition.  

To ensure the accuracy of his work, Lalaing extensively used the medium of photography; he also enlisted the services of renowned photographers in Brussels to compile a photographic record of his work. Lalaing accumulated a large collection of “Academies”, images produced for artists by Parisian photographers and publishers to serve as sources for inspiration. He also photographed thousands of reference images  in his Brussels studio. These photos served as a simple work tools, the preparatory sketches from which to produce the initial plaster or charcoal study. In his vast Brussels studio, Lalaing staged his subjects facing the camera: celebrities whose portrait he had been commissioned to paint, as well as professional models, children and animals selected to inspire a future composition.

Jacques de Lalaing was commissioned for interior decorative scenes for the town hall of the Belgian commune of Saint-Gilles which bordered the city of Brussels. Other artists commissioned for this project included Fernand Khnopff, Albert Ciamberlani, and Emile Fabry, among others. Lalaing created six allegorical oil on canvas panels depicting the themes of commerce and industry; these panels were placed around the allegory “Truth, Goodness and Beauty”, a collaboration between painter Alfred Cluysenaar and himself.

In 1896, Lalaing was elected a member of the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels; between 1904 and 1913, he served as its director. Lalaing died on the tenth of October in 1917 at the age of fifty-eight. In addition to private collections, his works are represented in the museum collections of Antwerp, Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Tournal. A collection of Lalaing’s photographic studies are housed in the Musée d’Orsay, France where an exhibition of these images was held from September of 2022 to March of 2023. . 

Notes: The website for L’Hôtel de Ville de Saint-Gilles, now a museum in the commune of Saint-Gilles, can be found at: https://hoteldeville.stgilles.brussels/fr/

Top Insert Image: Alexandre de Lalaing, “Jacques de Lalaing”, Date Unknown, Vintage Print

Second Insert Image: Jacques De Lalaing, “Shirtless Model Sitting”, 1980, Albumin Print, Musée d’Orsay

Third Insert Image: Philip de László, “Comte Jacques de Lalainig”, 1931 (Paris), Oil on Board, 90 x 72 cm, Private Collection

Bottom Insert Image: Jacques de Lalaing, “Model with Mannequin”, circa 1884, Albumin Photo, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

 

Jan Pypers

Jan Pypers, The Hare Series

Antwerp-based Belgium photographer Jan Pypers captures moments in places, sometimes dark and ominous, that form stories in the viewer’s mind. He starts with a memory or experience, often from his youth, gives it a slight twist, and transforms it into an image. To stage these moments, he uses scale models of different sizes, lifelike decors, and cinematic effects, often drawing inspiration for his creation from films by such artists as Christopher Nolan and David Lynch. Making the basic images with a digital camera, Pypers then shoots additional photos in his studio, bringing it all together in post-production. 

Pypers initiated the “Hare Series” after experiencing a succession of intense dreams. In this series, an innocent, endearing character, reminiscent of Peter Rabbit from our childhood, is inserted into a dark world, becoming a disturbing, stalking menace. The hare figure is seen hidden on conspicuous corners and casually standing or sitting on a windowsill; but even in these circumstances, a growing sense of unease and paranoia is instilled in the viewer.

“In the morning, I always felt lost, you know the feeling. Hare is actually a tribute to the dream, where nothing is impossible and we can do and feel whatever we want. Hare is about our irrational fear of the unknown but also about our denial for real problems such as climate, individualism, loneliness” — Jan Pypers

Many thanks to a great art, film and music site: https://ohbythewayblog.blogspot.com

Jan de Clerck

Jan de Clerck, “De vermoeide Winden (The Tired Winds)”, 1937, Oil on Canvas, Private Collection

Born in Ostend, Belgium, Jan de Clerck studied briefly with the painter Camille Payen in Brussels, but was, for the most part, self-taught. He was much influenced by the exhibitions organized by the group La Libre Esthétique, and his first paintings date from the late 1890s. Quickly gaining in confidence and ability, De Clerck first exhibited his paintings in 1905.

Jan de Clerck developed an original technique of a sort of elongated pointillism of striped brushstrokes, producing landscapes and seascapes tinged with a Symbolist aesthetic. He often worked in mixed media, dragging the paint with short vertical strokes in order to build up the surface of the picture. This individual technique De Clerck made virtually his own: much of his best work up to 1920 is painted in this way.

A period of exile from Belgium during World War I, found De Clerke painting landscapes and camouflage, taking part in local exhibitions, and befriending such artists as Frank Brangwyn. After the war, Jan de Clerck returned to Ostend where his reputation continued to grow. He experimented with new techniques, often mixing pastel and watercolour, which he called ‘aquapastel’, to create the luminous effects he sought.

Further exhibitions of De Clerck’s work in Ostend, Liège and Ghent, as well as the publication of a book of reproductions of his work in 1928, served to advance his reputation. After 1933, however, there were no major exhibitions of De Clerck’s work for almost twenty years. His output began to decline, and he began to focus mainly on seascapes, always his favourite subject.

Source: poboh

Laurent Durieux

Laurent Durieux, “Rear Window”, Date Unknown, Silk Screen

Laurent Durieux is a Brussels illustrator and graphic artist who has spent two decades as a designer and a teacher. His retro-futuristic movie posters have caught the world’s attention after the 2013 release of his “Jaws” poster. He considers illustrator Jean Girard, who drew the “Moebius’ and “L’Incal” comic books, and Belgian illustrator Luc Van Malderen as his mentors.

In 2011, Laurent Furieux was named one of the world’s Best Illustrations by the international advertising magazine Lurzer’s Archive. That same year, his short animated film “Hellville” was screened at several world film festivals.

François Schuiten

François Schuiten, “L’Ombre d’un Doute (Shadow of a Doubt)”, Lithograph, Edition of 1000

François Schuiten is a Belgian comic book illustrator. During his studies at Saint-Luc Institute in Brussels, he met Claude Renard, who led the comics department at the school, and together created several books.  Schuiten is best known for drawing the series “Les Cites Obscures” (Cities of the Fantastic), an evocation of fantastic, partly imaginary cities that he created with his friend Benoit Peeters from 1983 for the Belgian monthly comics magazine “A Suivre”.

Every story focuses on one city or building, and further explores a world where architects and urbanists are the leading powers and architecture is the driving force behind society. Styles explored int the series include stalinistic and fascist architecture as well as gothic cathedrals.

ROA

‘ROA’, “Metazoa: Mixed-Media Cabinets”

The new series of mixed media works entitled “Metazoa”by Belgium artist ‘ROA’ features the artist’s familiar black and white depictions of animals painted on various cabinet-like furniture pieces that can be opened or shifted to reveal anatomical details. ROA often chooses to depict animals native to where he is working, specifically species that have been forced from their native habitats and now live on the outskirts of urban areas.

The Annual Light Festival

The Annual Light Festival in Ghent,  Belgium

Ghent is the first city in Belgium to have a complete lighting plan designed for it. The Light Festival wants to bring the Light Plan in the spotlights and reveal a glimpse of the unique and hidden charm of the city. During the Light Festival you can embark on an exploratory voyage along the wintery track in the Ghent city centre and plunge in the most exciting light experiences.

A subtle game of beams that reflect on the water surface, unexpected projections on buildings, poetic shadows that play in the semidarkness between the hidden treasures of the city. About fifteen internationally renowned artists and light designers lead you during the darkest days of the year along a 6 km track. On several unique locations, both inside and outside, you can admire the work of the light artists.

Unconfirmed Dates for 2016: January 26-29. Confirm dates before traveling.

Mehmet Ali Uysal

Mehmet Ali Uysal, “Clothespin”, Wood and Metal, Liege, Belgium, 2010

Designed by Turkish artist Mehmet Ali Uysal. this unusual clothespin sculpture which adorns the Chaudfontaine park in the outskirts of Liege, Belgium was especially implemented as part of the Festival of the Five Seasons in 2010. The giant “clipper” appears to be holding on tightly to a mold of land and grass, its original appearance attracting the attention and curiosity of cyclists and various travelers.

Francois Schuiten

Illustrations by Francois Schuiten

Baron François Schuiten is a Belgian comic-strip artist and scenographer descending from a family of architects. As Francois Schuiten was just 16 years old, the comic magazine “Pilot“ published his first comic. In addition to his first publications, he enrolled at the Institute Saint-Luc, where he studied under Claude Renard.

Together with the scenographer Benoît Peeters, Schuiten created his most well-known work of art: the series “Les Cités Obscures“ (The Mysterious Cities) which numbered 17 volumes. Influenced by the literary genre “Steam-Punk”, the content of the series centers about parallel urban worlds and the destruction of the historic cityscape of Brussels.

Francois Schuiten designed subway stations “Arts et Metiers” in Paris and “Porte de Hal” in Brussels. In addition, he was the designer for several Worlds Fairs pavilions : Luxembourg pavilion in Seville, “Planet of Visions” in Hanover in 2000, and the Belgian pavilion in Aichi (Japan) in 2005.

He has just published a Lonely Planet Guide about Brussels and is currently working on the design of future railway museum in Belgium.

Arne Quinze

Arne Quinze, “The Sequence”, Brussels, Belgium, Wooden Sculpture, November 13, 2008-November 13, 2013

The Sequence is a monumental public sculpture designed by Belgian artist and designer Arne Quinze. The artistic intervention located in the heart of Brussels is made from wood and concrete connecting the Flemish Parliament to the House of Representatives physically and symbolically. Acting as a bridge between the public and the government neighbors, it promotes urban interaction and communication.

Quinze lives and works in Sint Martens Latem nearby Ghent, Belgium.