DOI Artikel:
Khnopff, Fernand: A great Belgian sculptor: Constantin Meunier
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20712#0021
THE STUDIO
A GREAT BELGIAN SCULPTOR:
CONSTANTIN MEUNIER. BY
FERNAND KHNOPFF.
In the early morning of Tuesday, April 4,
Constantin Meunier died at Brussels, in his house
in the Rue de l’Abbaye, where he had freely lived
his noble life of work illuminated by fame.
He had suffered for several months from cardiac
trouble, and painful seizures had many times sur-
prised him in the midst of his family, themselves
harassed by ills from which he suffered in mind as
much as he did from his own illness; but his great
fortitude, his invincible determination to live and
to work, had always got the upper hand. He had
passed the whole of Monday in his studio, and had
received a visit from the pianist Raoul Pugno,
whose bust he had expressed the intention of
modelling. Next day, to-
wards six o’clock, he was
suddenly attacked by
suffocation, and passed
peacefully away in the
seventy-fourth year of his
age.
“ The art of our country
has lost its crown,” said
M. Yerlant, the director
of the Fine Arts, in the
fine discourse which he
pronounced over the
mortal remains of the great
artist. It is not, how-
ever, merely one of the
greatest artists of Belgium
who has disappeared, but
one of the greatest artists
of all lands and of all
time. Meunier’s glory is
not of a nation, but of
mankind.
“A light of universal art
has been extinguished,’7
wrote M. O. Maus, in
UArt Moderne• “the
nobility of his aesthetic
philosophy, the grave
beauty of the figures he
has modelled, the pity
which is breathed from
XXXV. No. 147.—June.
his work, had borne his name to the ends of the
world. No one, perhaps, before him had, after
days of such gloomy experience, attained a more
widespread renown. He worked hard, he suffered
in his tenderest affections, his weak health obliged
him more than once to take rest which was very
irksome to his impatient activity. But nothing,
from the day when the sunshine of fame first
irradiated his life, arrested his slow and sure
progress towards the conquest of hearts. When
he died he had completely attained a recognition
which he owed as much to the loyalty and sim-
plicity of his life as to the magnificence of his art.”
Camille Lemonnier writes in his fine work
dedicated to Meunier :—“ The mark of that true
greatness which history will assign to him, is that
he has noted the eternal amongst that which is
transitory, and the type amid human generalities.”
CONSTANTIN MEUNIER IN HIS STUDIO FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY M. DUYK
I905-
3
A GREAT BELGIAN SCULPTOR:
CONSTANTIN MEUNIER. BY
FERNAND KHNOPFF.
In the early morning of Tuesday, April 4,
Constantin Meunier died at Brussels, in his house
in the Rue de l’Abbaye, where he had freely lived
his noble life of work illuminated by fame.
He had suffered for several months from cardiac
trouble, and painful seizures had many times sur-
prised him in the midst of his family, themselves
harassed by ills from which he suffered in mind as
much as he did from his own illness; but his great
fortitude, his invincible determination to live and
to work, had always got the upper hand. He had
passed the whole of Monday in his studio, and had
received a visit from the pianist Raoul Pugno,
whose bust he had expressed the intention of
modelling. Next day, to-
wards six o’clock, he was
suddenly attacked by
suffocation, and passed
peacefully away in the
seventy-fourth year of his
age.
“ The art of our country
has lost its crown,” said
M. Yerlant, the director
of the Fine Arts, in the
fine discourse which he
pronounced over the
mortal remains of the great
artist. It is not, how-
ever, merely one of the
greatest artists of Belgium
who has disappeared, but
one of the greatest artists
of all lands and of all
time. Meunier’s glory is
not of a nation, but of
mankind.
“A light of universal art
has been extinguished,’7
wrote M. O. Maus, in
UArt Moderne• “the
nobility of his aesthetic
philosophy, the grave
beauty of the figures he
has modelled, the pity
which is breathed from
XXXV. No. 147.—June.
his work, had borne his name to the ends of the
world. No one, perhaps, before him had, after
days of such gloomy experience, attained a more
widespread renown. He worked hard, he suffered
in his tenderest affections, his weak health obliged
him more than once to take rest which was very
irksome to his impatient activity. But nothing,
from the day when the sunshine of fame first
irradiated his life, arrested his slow and sure
progress towards the conquest of hearts. When
he died he had completely attained a recognition
which he owed as much to the loyalty and sim-
plicity of his life as to the magnificence of his art.”
Camille Lemonnier writes in his fine work
dedicated to Meunier :—“ The mark of that true
greatness which history will assign to him, is that
he has noted the eternal amongst that which is
transitory, and the type amid human generalities.”
CONSTANTIN MEUNIER IN HIS STUDIO FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY M. DUYK
I905-
3