Georges Lemmen: Factories on the Thames – c1892 Kröller Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands Many European artists came to London in the late 19th and early Twentieth centuries, in part attracted to the atmospheric conditions which prevailed at the time. The […]
Georges Lemmen: The Two Sisters or The Serruys Sisters – 1894 Indianapolis Museum of Art The Serruys family lived in the Belgian town of Menin (now forever associated with the Great War). Edmond Serruys was a wealthy textile mill owner. […]
Georges Lemmen The son of a Brussels architect, Lemmen’s output was at first influenced by the Belgian symbolists, primarily Fernand Khnopff and James Ensor but later, having seen Georges Seurat’s work exhibited at Les XX he began to paint in […]
Théo van Rysselberghe: Big Clouds – 1893 Indianapolis Museum of Art, USA With a restricted palette made up mainly of blue-violet and yellow (a combination following Neo-Impressionist colour theory) van Rysselberghe constructs a stunningly beautiful and very simple composition with the […]
Alfred William Finch: Haystacks – 1889 Museum of Ixelles, Brussels The repeated, almost abstract outlines, of haystacks and neighbouring farm buildings are the only relief from the oppressive flatness of the landscape. Finch’s restricted palette of grey-blue, light blue and […]
Alfred William Finch Finch initially painted in the Impressionist style but after seeing examples of Neo-Impressionist work by Seurat and Camille Pissarro exhibited at Les XX in 1887 he switched to a divisionist technique. Indeed, he later began to paint […]
Théo van Rysselberghe: In July before Noon (Family in the Garden) – 1890 Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands Five women are enjoying a summer morning in the spacious garden of a country house. A dreamlike atmosphere pervades the painting – one […]
Emile Verhaeren Emile Verhaeren was a Belgian Symbolist poet, playwright and critic who trained as a lawyer but soon abandoned that path to dedicate his life to literature, criticism and poetry. From 1880 he wrote for l’Art Moderne a journal publishing […]
Les XX and Neo-Impressionism in Belgium The exhibition society know as Les XX (Les Vingt) was established in Brussels in October 1883 by 11 founding members who then invited a further nine to take part in their first exhibition in […]