DOI issue:
No. 345 (December 1921)
DOI article:Studio-talk
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21393#0313
STUDIO-TALK
' EN TERRE WALLONNE "
BY AUGUSTE DONNA Y
(Museed'Art. Li^gc ; Photo
Goossens)
Auguste Donnay in his quiet home at It is as a landscape painter that he will
Mery — parva domus magna quies i — always be best known. His method of
amongst the hills and woods of Ardennes, work and his point of view were neither
saw reflected upon his face some of the idealistic nor realistic ; he painted the
essential qualities of his art—that harmony, blue-grey haze, the rolling distances,
that simplicity of mind which, shrinking the pines and silver birches of Ardennes,
from the vulgarities of notoriety and not as one who looks upon them from
fortune-making, finds itself at one with without, but as one to whom these things
creative life and thought and feeling. 0 are so intimately known that they are
Auguste Donnay was born at Liege, part of himself—projections and expres-
in 1862. His childhood was a strange, sions of his own mind. " II gardait
and in certain respects, a lonely one; jalousement ses reves," Olympe Gilbart
having lost his mother very early, he was said of him. He was illustrator and
brought up by his grandmother, and from etcher, as well as painter, and many of his
her he learned the old tales, the old legends etchings are extraordinarily decorative. 0
of saint and devil and fairy that still linger Amongst the most ambitious of his
amongst the Walloon people. He first pictures may be mentioned a tryptich, in
studied art at the Academy of Liege, the church at Hastiere, representing scenes
studying by night, according to Madame from the life of Saint Walthere; the al-
Marguerite Devigne, whilst working by together delightful Arrival at Bethlehem;
day as an ordinary house decorator, and a decorative panel recently exhibited
Gaining a travelling scholarship, he went at Liege, and in all these three works there
to Paris, where his fellow countrymen, appear again the familiar features of the
Alfred Stevens and Rops, were living Valley of the Ourthe, but hardly as back-
and working. But all the latter part of grounds for the figures—the figures would
Donnay's life was passed in that Walloon rather seem to express in another form
country where he was born, and which the brooding spirit of the hills and
he made entirely his own domain in art. woods. 000000
297
' EN TERRE WALLONNE "
BY AUGUSTE DONNA Y
(Museed'Art. Li^gc ; Photo
Goossens)
Auguste Donnay in his quiet home at It is as a landscape painter that he will
Mery — parva domus magna quies i — always be best known. His method of
amongst the hills and woods of Ardennes, work and his point of view were neither
saw reflected upon his face some of the idealistic nor realistic ; he painted the
essential qualities of his art—that harmony, blue-grey haze, the rolling distances,
that simplicity of mind which, shrinking the pines and silver birches of Ardennes,
from the vulgarities of notoriety and not as one who looks upon them from
fortune-making, finds itself at one with without, but as one to whom these things
creative life and thought and feeling. 0 are so intimately known that they are
Auguste Donnay was born at Liege, part of himself—projections and expres-
in 1862. His childhood was a strange, sions of his own mind. " II gardait
and in certain respects, a lonely one; jalousement ses reves," Olympe Gilbart
having lost his mother very early, he was said of him. He was illustrator and
brought up by his grandmother, and from etcher, as well as painter, and many of his
her he learned the old tales, the old legends etchings are extraordinarily decorative. 0
of saint and devil and fairy that still linger Amongst the most ambitious of his
amongst the Walloon people. He first pictures may be mentioned a tryptich, in
studied art at the Academy of Liege, the church at Hastiere, representing scenes
studying by night, according to Madame from the life of Saint Walthere; the al-
Marguerite Devigne, whilst working by together delightful Arrival at Bethlehem;
day as an ordinary house decorator, and a decorative panel recently exhibited
Gaining a travelling scholarship, he went at Liege, and in all these three works there
to Paris, where his fellow countrymen, appear again the familiar features of the
Alfred Stevens and Rops, were living Valley of the Ourthe, but hardly as back-
and working. But all the latter part of grounds for the figures—the figures would
Donnay's life was passed in that Walloon rather seem to express in another form
country where he was born, and which the brooding spirit of the hills and
he made entirely his own domain in art. woods. 000000
297