Page 28 - Studio Internatinal - October 1974

So it was that Seurat and Signac found their exhibited regularly in Paris and was clearly in by Cheret, story books for children illustrated
most loyal disciples in Belgium. Theo van sympathy with the aims of the symbolists, he by Walter Crane and ceramics by Gauguin at
Rysselberghe, Willy Finch, Georges Lemmen was above all an anglophile, in love with English the annual Salon. The following year an entire
and Henry van de Velde all used the divisionist literature, especially the books of Wilde, a fervent room was devoted to the applied arts. Magazine
technique for a time and with great success. For admirer of the pre-Raphaelites and a believer in illustrations by Selwyn Image, Herbert Horne
they refused to be slaves to a hide-bound the superiority of English clothes. Khnopff and Lucien Pissarro, a design for stained glass
method, applied it to a range of subjects wider was a dandy. He quickly became one of the few by Emile Bernard and an embroidery pattern
than that exploited by either Seurat and Signac Belgian painters of the time to win by van de Velde were shown together with
and modified the technique in various ways. international acclaim. Studio printed illustrated books printed by William Morris,
Van Rysselberghe continued to use it until illustrations of many of his works; Ver Sacrum, which had the place of honour.
1902, long after Finch, Lemmen and van de the journal of the Vienna Secession, devoted An enthusiasm for French art had directed
Velde had moved on to other things and long an entire issue to Khnopff in 1898, and both the early activities of 'Les Vingt'. Now it was the
after Neo-Impressionism had lost all relevance French and English poets constructed metaphors turn of the British. Of the group's members
in France. around his peculiar imagery. Finch, van de Velde and the symbolist George
For 'Les XX', undogmatic and ever open to The career of Jean Delville also demonstrates Minne knew most about British art and were
new ideas, the French Symbolists, and especially the ability of many Belgian symbolists to draw most enthusiastic about the theories of Ruskin
those associated with Peladan's Rosicrucian strength from a variety of apparently dissimilar and Morris and the architecture of Mackintosh,
Salons, proved to be as important as the post- sources. For Delville worked with Peladan in Shaw and others. On a deserted beach in Holland
impressionists. The star of the first `XX' Salon Paris and, under the influence of the Rose and in 1893 van de Velde told the girl who was to
had, after all, been Redon, and there were Croix Salons, founded the Salon d'Art Idealiste become his wife about his artistic ideals: 'I told
already very close links between Belgian in Brussels. Then, in 1900 he was invited to go Maria Sethe about the great figures, Ruskin and
symbolist writers and artists and their colleagues as Professor of Drawing to the Glasgow School William Morris, and described the deep impression
in France. In 1886 a Symbolist journal, La of Art, where he stayed for seven years. their work had made on me .... I said that I was
Wallonie, began publication in Liege and Delville's Salon and La Lumière, the weekly determined to follow their path until their
regularly printed contributions from the associated with it, attempted to introduce to prophecy was realised: the return of beauty on
leading French symbolists. Soon after, Belgium the kind of art supported by Peladan earth and the beginning of an era of social justice
Verhearen began to give L'Art Moderne a and what Delville believed the aims of the and human dignity'. (Henry van de Velde,
symbolist bias. Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to have been. Geschichte Meines Lebens, Munich, 1962.) Van
Literary subject-matter was extremely Ensor, one of the founder-members of 'Les de Velde, like Finch, now decided to abandon
important to most Belgian painters during the XX', is primarily thought of today as a proto- painting as a major activity and, under English
19th century and the peculiar character of expressionist. His use of arbitrary colour, the influence, strove to become the complete artist:
Belgian Surrealism in the 20th suggests that place of masks in his repertoire of subjects, the architect, designer, illustrator and theorist in
Belgians have fewer affinities with 'pure' extent to which his paintings reflect the one.
painters than with those interested in development of his personality anticipate the The wave of interest in the Arts and Crafts
metaphor, allegory and traditional themes. methods of the expressionists by more than movement and the belief that industry should
Even before the advent of French Symbolism twenty years. For many contemporaries however, work closely together with designers in order to
many Belgian artists had explored strange, Ensor seemed to have many affinities with the produce better goods also affected Maus. In
mysterious, sensational and often macabre symbolists and for Verhaeren Ensor was the 1894 Maus, Picard, Verhaeren and others founded
subject-matter. The best of them was greatest symbolist of all. 'It is above all in the 'S.A. l'Art', the aim of which was: 'the
probably Antoine Wiertz (who died in 1865) Ensor', he wrote, 'that the new tendencies application of arts to industry in general and
whose gigantic machines depict pagan legends, surface. No-one gives colours life as he does....' their relevance to daily life ....' This aim was
Christian stories and imagined scenes in a lurid Ensor's relationship with 'Les XX' was never expanded in an article in L'Art Moderne, now
style and with close attention to incidental, easy even though for years it provided him largely concerned with the applied arts and with
horrifying detail. His work is clearly related to with his only means of exhibiting. What in what it called Art Nouveau (actually a Maus
that of later artists like Rops, Mellery, Khnopff retrospect seems to have been a bad case of coining): 'The new society proposes to become
and even Ensor, who today is not thought of paranoia drove Ensor to be grateful to no one the intermediary between buyers, manufacturers
primarily as a symbolist. and suspicious of all, and he reserved his and artists .... it has taken a commercial form,
Rops, who spent many years in Paris and strongest feelings for Maus. Ensor believed that because without capital it will never be
was a friend of Baudelaire, epitomized the the group's secretary hated him, campaigned considered as a force among the industrialists
decadent side of the movement and specialized against him and was responsible for the many to whom it will address itself.'
in pornographic drawings and etchings which, in a hardships he endured. Some of Ensor's paintings By 1894 'Les XX' no longer existed. A year
catalogue of sexual perversion, have the power record these feelings: in 1896 Maus was depicted earlier Maus had, with the consent of its
to shock even today. Rops was a member of as one of the 'Dangerous Cooks', serving up a members, changed the name to 'La Libre
both 'Les XX' and, later, `La Libre Esthetique' herring with Ensor's head on it to a group of Esthetique' and had made the organization more
which held a retrospective of his work in 1899 easily identifiable critics. Such animosities seem flexible. The new association lasted until 1914
only a few months after his death in France. to have been necessary to Ensor who worked and carried on the pioneering work begun by
Mellery's art, equally symbolist, is less them out in his greatest pictures. As Verhaeren `Les XX', especially in its support for the arts
concerned with incident than Rops's, possesses wrote: 'He had great difficulty in achieving and crafts movement. At the 1895 Salon of `La
the power to evoke the kind of silence that recognition: like the grain of some rare and Libre Esthetique', for example, Beardsley's
leads to meditation or to sudden revelation. precious wood, his delicate sensibility was Morte d'Arthur was shown with work by
This appears to be a characteristic of much wounded and crushed by contact with stupidity Ashbee, Crane, Bradley, Voysey and the
Belgian art. It can be found in Khnopff, and in .... under incomprehension his laughter became Fitzroy Society. Redon, Khnopff and Mellery
Magritte, for example. sneering, his irony gave way to sarcasm.' represented the symbolist trends, which were
Khnopff was, in fact, a pupil of Mellery's, During the 1890s 'Les Vingt' changed still popular in Brussels and which were seen to
and his work shows how Belgian artists have direction slightly and was the first European have close affinities with Art Nouveau.
been able to draw inspiration simultaneously organization of its kind to register the shift 1893 was an important year. It saw the
from a variety of foreign sources. Although he towards applied art. In 1891 it included posters appearance of a new and important art magazine
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