Page 29 - Studio Internatinal - October 1974

(Left) Theo van Rysselberghe (Centre) Fernand Khnopff La Ville Abandonnée 1904
Portrait of Madame Charles Maus ACL
© ACL
(Top right) Leon Spilliaert Digue et Kursaal d'Ostende
1908 Indian ink and coloured pencil, 50 x 65 cm
(Bottom right) Victor Servranckx Opus 471923
ACL

not only in England (The Studio) but also in greatest talents remained unmoved by the scenes which promise mystery, create
Belgium. Van de Velde had been interested in manifestoes and the multiplicity of new styles atmosphere and send shivers down the spine.
English typography and book design for some which appeared after 1900. Cubism did not take The painter whose work best demonstrates
time and now founded (with the Flemish writer root in Belgium and neither did Futurism. the links between Belgian Symbolism and
Vermeylen) Van nu en straks (From today to Belgian Expressionism was (in spite of the Surrealism is Leon Spilliaert, still little-known
tomorrow) which first appeared on 1 April power of Permeke) essentially a Flemish, abroad. Spilliaert was, like Ensor, a native of
1893. It is best remembered today for the parochial phenomenon which shares little with Ostend where he was born in 1881, and many
vignettes van de Velde designed for it: simple, and owed nothing to its German counterpart. of his best works are of beach and dune
energetically curving patterns in black and Apart from Victor Servranckx, one of the subjects. His Dyke and Kursaal at Ostend (1908)
white, they demonstrate the links between Art pioneers of abstraction, the Belgian contribution is a typical example of Spilliaert's ability to
Nouveau and early abstraction. The design of to non-figurative painting has also been invest a simple scene with mystery and to make
Van nu en straks and the quality of its articles negligible. Not until the advent of Surrealism it evoke an unnerving atmosphere of silence by
made it one of the most influential art did the work of Belgian painters have the kind a judicious use of light. The picture (in
magazines in Europe, the equal of La Revue of contemporary relevance and international Spilliaert's favourite medium: pastel and indian
Blanche and The Studio, with both of which it significance which it had possessed during the ink) is formally extremely simple. It consists
had much in common. years of 'Les XX'. only of varieties of blue and yellow and is
Van de Velde, fast becoming the most It is important to recognize that Belgian devoid of figures. The light from two doors and
versatile and intellectually rigorous artist to be Surrealism is a style apart: a variety of painting one window cuts paths across the sand. The
working anywhere at that time, did not restrict which has closer affinities with earlier, typically picture calls forth the most painful kind of
his activities to Belgium. With Samuel Bing in Belgian art than with any kind of French loneliness, as does all of Spilliaert's best work:
Paris he began the first Art Nouveau Salon Surrealism. The kind of imagery explored by his Dining Room (1904), for example, which
(based on the activities of the 'S.A. L'Art' in Magritte and Delvaux, the kind of atmosphere shows completely laid tables, lit by chandeliers
Brussels) and decorated the offices of the their work evokes, clearly have their roots in the and waiting for guests who will never arrive.
Revue Blanche in the new manner. In Germany symbolism of, for example, Khnopff and The Belgian surrealists are regarded, perhaps
he worked in Dresden in a similar way and, Mellery and rework familiar themes. inevitably, almost exclusively in French terms,
later, designed the Folkwang Museum for Compare, for example, Khnopff's Abandoned even though they represent far more obviously
Osthaus and created the School of Arts and Town (1904), a haunting image of an empty the continuation of a peculiarly Belgian
Crafts in Weimar which, in 1919, Walter square in Bruges, into which the sea is silently tradition. It has been the fate of most of the
Gropius took over and renamed Bauhaus. It moving, with Magritte's Human Condition major Belgian artists to be written about and
was, finally, as an architect that van de Velde (1935) which derives its poetry from a discussed as adjuncts to more important
made his international reputation, but that similarly ambiguous juxtaposition of sea and movements and developments elsewhere,
reputation can obscure his contribution to solid objects. Magritte, like many of the especially in France, as though a stronger
typography, furniture design and to the whole symbolists, seems to have been fascinated by culture always absorbs a weaker. This, too, is
new field of industrial design. It is not difficult the quality of silence which can be the result of the language problem, the failure
to argue that van de Velde is the most communicated visually and by the power to of Belgium to present the outside world with a
considerable artist to have come out of shock and move of minor inconsistencies of clear and distinct artistic personality. Yet that
Belgium in modern times. logic which are only perceptible by degrees. personality is there, even though it is not as
It is perhaps significant that the course of Compare, once again, The House of Mystery sharp, perhaps, as that of, say, Holland, and it is
Belgian art, directed to such a large extent during (1892) by William Degouve de Nunques with a personality with a past. 'Les XX' was in part
the later nineteenth century by developments in Magritte's Empire of Light (1954), almost a responsible for making Brussels one of Europe's
France and England, should have been so little reworking of the same subject. Both, with their most important cultural centres. The bilingual
affected by later varieties of modernism. The tricks of light and temporal ambiguities, are city might yet become one again.q
127