Untitled Document

Some 200 paintings provide a good overview of the painting done in the 19th century within the boundaries of modern-day Belgium. At the beginning of the 19th century, Belgium was first part of the French Empire. Then from 1815, it was part of the kingdom of the Netherlands, and finally from 1830 an independent kingdom. Thanks to a number of remarkable works by foreign artists - mainly French - Belgium's artistic development is painted with a broader brush and placed in an international context. All of the main movements are represented and can be placed in five main style groups that are sometimes simultaneous and not always set apart with any accuracy.

Neo-classicism marks the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century. It was inspired in the beginning by the rise in interest for classical antiquity brought about by spectacular archeological discoveries. High ideals and great virtues were put back in the spotlight and added powerful impetus to the social upheaval of the French Revolution and the Empire. Alongside major masterpieces by Jacques-Louis David (The death of Marat) and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, the leaders of European neo-classicism, are works by François Gérard, Mathieu and Philippe Van Brée, and in particular by François-Joseph Navez (de Hemptinne family group).

The kingdom of Belgium was created after the revolution in 1830 during a period that exalted heroism and nationalism. These vibrant emotions and theatrical effects are expressed by Gustaf Wappers (Episodes from September Days 1830 on the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville in Brussels) and Antoine Wiertz, as well as by the Frenchmen Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix. The passion for the national and local past is reflected in the historicism of Louis Gallait and Henri Leys, in flagrant contrast with the exotic orientalism of Jean-François Portaels (The Simoon / Souvenir of Syria).

From 1850 onwards, we see the dawn of bourgeois and urban realism illustrated here by Louis Dubois, Joseph and Alfred Stevens, Edouard Agneessens and by the highly personal Henri De Braekeleer. Nature is no longer something to be studied in the studio, but instead outside in the open air, by landscape and seascape painters such as Théodore Fourmois, Louis Artan de Saint-Martin, Guillaume Vogels and Hippolyte Boulenger (The Old Hornbeam. Tervueren), whose works can be compared with those of Camille Corot and Gustave Courbet. The grinding poverty and social consequences of industrialisation are depicted in a very raw manner in the naturalism of Charles De Groux, Constantin Meunier, Charles Hermans (At dawn), Léon Frédéric and Eugène Laermans. This series of paintings is rounded out by one of the early works of Vincent Van Gogh.

During the last quarter of the 19th century, a number of fundamental renewal movements sprang up, and sometimes overlap. Thus it was that French impressionism developed from 1872. You can compare works by the Frenchmen Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley with those by Belgians, such as Emile Claus (Cows crossing the Lys), Félicien Rops and Anna Boch.

You can also see how pointillism, developed by Georges Seurat from 1886 as a painting technique based on the very latest scientific discoveries in the field of optics, was followed immediately by Paul Signac, Théo Van Rysselberghe and Henry Van de Velde (Village events VII. The girl mending). An original form of art was developed in a short time in the wake of Edouard Manet, Henri Evenepoel (Henriette with the big hat). For their part, Paul Gauguin (Breton calvary) and the Nabis, Pierre Bonnard (Nude against the light) and Edouard Vuillard form a special group.

Belgium was a favoured place for symbolism. So it is no surprise that this movement is brilliantly represented at the Museum. For Fernand Khnopff, Jean Delville, William Degouve de Nuncques and the British artist Edward Burne-Jones (The wedding procession of Psyche), the important thing was not to reproduce reality, but to suggest the mysterious and evoke the hidden soul of people and things in a poetic and sometimes anguished fashion. Finally, the incomparable work by James Ensor (Skeletons fighting for a smoked herring) to which an entire room is dedicated, heralds art in the 20th century.