DOI article:
Van der Veer, Lenore: The art of Victor Gilsoul
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20710#0139
Victor Gilsoul
paintings accepted at Brussels, and the Minister of
Fine Arts supplemented this award by nominating
Gilsoul a Chevalier de l'Ordre de Leopold.
At the Paris Exposition of 1900, Gilsoul was
given a silver medal for his Lueurs Crepusculaires,
a picture that awakened much interest for the
Belgian artist. At the Paris Salon, 1901, he
showed a landscape entitled Environs de Nienport,
which was bought by King Leopold II. Two
of the best landscapes shown in the Vienna
Kunstlerhaus last spring were by Gilsoul. They
were rich in colouring and superb in tech-
nique.
What Gilsoul aims at in his art is not difficult to
see. He loves everything that is healthy, power-
ful, and robust in art. Since the very beginning of
his career he has given his best thought to the
development of his style, which he wants always to
purify more and more. Yet this desire does not
absorb his appreciation of the importance of other
qualities which go towards the completion of every
man's truest expression in art. He knows that in
order to reach the vast synthetic impression which
he pursues the colouring must also be refined,
must always be more subtle, the light always more
enveloped.
This was most forcefully shown some three years
ago at the moment when his mastership had become
undisputed, and he was at what seemed to be the
very height of his success. It was at this moment
that he was suddenly seen to begin searching, like
a student, to modify his work—to be going through
a stage of deep uncertainty, as it were. But he
knew what he was doing nevertheless, and after a
' NIEUPORT COUCHER DU SOLEIL BY VICTOR GILSOUL
122
paintings accepted at Brussels, and the Minister of
Fine Arts supplemented this award by nominating
Gilsoul a Chevalier de l'Ordre de Leopold.
At the Paris Exposition of 1900, Gilsoul was
given a silver medal for his Lueurs Crepusculaires,
a picture that awakened much interest for the
Belgian artist. At the Paris Salon, 1901, he
showed a landscape entitled Environs de Nienport,
which was bought by King Leopold II. Two
of the best landscapes shown in the Vienna
Kunstlerhaus last spring were by Gilsoul. They
were rich in colouring and superb in tech-
nique.
What Gilsoul aims at in his art is not difficult to
see. He loves everything that is healthy, power-
ful, and robust in art. Since the very beginning of
his career he has given his best thought to the
development of his style, which he wants always to
purify more and more. Yet this desire does not
absorb his appreciation of the importance of other
qualities which go towards the completion of every
man's truest expression in art. He knows that in
order to reach the vast synthetic impression which
he pursues the colouring must also be refined,
must always be more subtle, the light always more
enveloped.
This was most forcefully shown some three years
ago at the moment when his mastership had become
undisputed, and he was at what seemed to be the
very height of his success. It was at this moment
that he was suddenly seen to begin searching, like
a student, to modify his work—to be going through
a stage of deep uncertainty, as it were. But he
knew what he was doing nevertheless, and after a
' NIEUPORT COUCHER DU SOLEIL BY VICTOR GILSOUL
122