DOI Heft:
No. 215 (January 1915)
DOI Artikel:Buschmann, P.: Belgian artists in England
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43457#0272
Belgian Artists in England
“ Primitives,” before all Memlinc, inspired in a
arge measure the promoters of the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood, and in our own days works by Flemish
or Belgian artists have often figured prominently
in brilliant loan exhibitions devoted to ancient and
modern art.
The Belgian artists who have now sought refuge
in England will not feel quite out of their element;
all those I have met here, partners in the mis-
fortune which has befallen our country, have
expressed themselves delighted with the reception
everywhere accorded to them, and they will cer-
tainly subscribe with all their heart to the impres-
sions, quoted above, of their great old master,
Rubens. Of course they by no means represent the
whole of the Belgium art guild of to-day. It may
be that some of our leading artists have been
prevented from leaving their homes; others have
found a domicile in Holland or in France, and
there are possibly some staying in England who
have escaped our investigations.
We think, therefore, that in presenting the
Belgian artists now enjoying British hospitality,
we must allow our readers to have at least a glance
at the present art movement in their country.
Belgium’s situation at one of the main crossways
of the intellectual streams of Europe has necessarily
influenced its artistic development. At its best
moments, it took the lead in artistic life and
activity, and its influence prevailed both in the
North and in the South; at other times, it readily
assimilated and reflected in its own character the
renovations and developments coming from abroad
—but ever it has remained one of the most
sensible points in the great evolution of Art.
Now that art seems to hesitate and to seek new
ways, the divergent and opposite tendencies are
quite as numerous and the confusion quite as great
in this little spot on earth as throughout the wide
world.
Lost traditions still continue here their artificial
life with more tenacity perhaps than elsewhere.
“ Genre ” scenes in the style of Madou and the
“ little masters,” reconstitutions of antique or
oriental scenery, chlorotic pasticcios of mediaeval
Madonnas are still produced with more or less
skill by brave craftsmen, who look to old pictures
rather than to nature, and live in the sweet illusion
that they are continuing the “very” art of Flanders.
But a long time has already elapsed since epic
‘the estacade, nieuport”
T84
WATER-COLOUR BY ALEXANDRE MARCETTE
“ Primitives,” before all Memlinc, inspired in a
arge measure the promoters of the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood, and in our own days works by Flemish
or Belgian artists have often figured prominently
in brilliant loan exhibitions devoted to ancient and
modern art.
The Belgian artists who have now sought refuge
in England will not feel quite out of their element;
all those I have met here, partners in the mis-
fortune which has befallen our country, have
expressed themselves delighted with the reception
everywhere accorded to them, and they will cer-
tainly subscribe with all their heart to the impres-
sions, quoted above, of their great old master,
Rubens. Of course they by no means represent the
whole of the Belgium art guild of to-day. It may
be that some of our leading artists have been
prevented from leaving their homes; others have
found a domicile in Holland or in France, and
there are possibly some staying in England who
have escaped our investigations.
We think, therefore, that in presenting the
Belgian artists now enjoying British hospitality,
we must allow our readers to have at least a glance
at the present art movement in their country.
Belgium’s situation at one of the main crossways
of the intellectual streams of Europe has necessarily
influenced its artistic development. At its best
moments, it took the lead in artistic life and
activity, and its influence prevailed both in the
North and in the South; at other times, it readily
assimilated and reflected in its own character the
renovations and developments coming from abroad
—but ever it has remained one of the most
sensible points in the great evolution of Art.
Now that art seems to hesitate and to seek new
ways, the divergent and opposite tendencies are
quite as numerous and the confusion quite as great
in this little spot on earth as throughout the wide
world.
Lost traditions still continue here their artificial
life with more tenacity perhaps than elsewhere.
“ Genre ” scenes in the style of Madou and the
“ little masters,” reconstitutions of antique or
oriental scenery, chlorotic pasticcios of mediaeval
Madonnas are still produced with more or less
skill by brave craftsmen, who look to old pictures
rather than to nature, and live in the sweet illusion
that they are continuing the “very” art of Flanders.
But a long time has already elapsed since epic
‘the estacade, nieuport”
T84
WATER-COLOUR BY ALEXANDRE MARCETTE