Page 57 - Studio International - May 1973

of the mass-media. They were the means of (Opposite page)
Elias
traditional painting with a sensuous
Groen 1971
predilection for the painting touch of Flemish
(Left)
expressionism.
Roger Raveel
In September-October 1966 Count Charles Raveel kopieert zich
de Kerchove de Denterghem asked Raveel to zelf 1972
paint the cellar passages of his chateau at (Below)
Beervelde. Raveel formed a group with Elias, Raoul de Keyser
De Keyser and the Dutchman Lucassen, and he Kalklejn en twee
Groenen 1970
painted figures on the walls which totally broke
up the existing space. Picture and surroundings [`FORTUNATELY STILL SOME
GRASS' AN EXHIBITION OF
became one reality. Since then this group of BELGIAN REALISTS, AND WORK
artists has been called the Beervelde school. The BY LUCASSEN, IS AT THE
CAMDEN ARTS CENTRE,
group stayed together for a project at the
LONDON,
Dulcia factories at Zottegem, but afterwards 2 MAY-10 JUNE.]
split up. The short but intensive collective
experience had accelerated the evolution of each
member. Soon none of the Beervelde school
characteristics were left in the art of Raoul De
Keyser and Etienne Elias. The latter (born
1936) is Raveel's antipole. He is a townsman.
His present-thy reality is imagination. He was
fascinated by the hippy culture; this he
experienced not in Ostend, where he lives and
where he participates in the cosmopolitan
carnival of holiday-makers, but in Amsterdam.
The latter city's impact on young Flemish
artists is enormous. It has something of the
appeal Montmartre and Montparnasse once had.
Belgium still does not have modern art
museums and international art has not found
its way into the existing museums.
Amsterdam is therefore the artistic pilgrim's
holy city.
Elias's interest in irreality and irrationality
leads him to admire the naive art of Rousseau,
and the surrealism of Magritte, also eastern
miniatures. His works have become smaller and
smaller since 1970. This began when small
pictures had to be made for an exhibition held in
197o at the R. Foncke Gallery at Ghent. Elias
discovered the qualities of the miniature. He
changed his technique, perfected his sense of
detail, increased the number of colours,
intensified them, and, quite recently, began to
use acrylic. His love of painting has become an
obsession with the métier.
Raoul De Keyser (born 1930) has learnt from
Raved to respect shape and colour, reducing
both, however, to a minimum. He paints simple
themes in two or three colours. His themes,
chosen from his daily surroundings, include
such objects as barbed wire or a door latch.
The main difference between De Keyser's art
and that of the other members of the Beervelde
School is the fact that he dispenses with the
painter's touch. He expresses himself in flat
colour surfaces, sometimes pervaded with
various shades. He also prefers a saturated shade
of green. Lately he has been experimenting with
other colours, particularly with yellow, yet with
a certain diffidence. He works at the
composition of his pictures with a scrupulous
care and always sees to it that the colours remain
intense without ever becoming too brilliant.
There is also a slow evolution in the themes he
chooses. He often returns to the football ground
239