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If you have heard of Belgian painter Paul Delvaux (1897-1994) then it is likely to have been in connection with Surrealism. He gets a couple of illustrations in thematic surveys of Surrealism, rarely more. Unless you locate a specialist publication on the artist, it is hard to get an overview of his development. Delvaux is poorly represented in British public collections.

Born near Liège in 1897, Delvaux initially studied architecture in Brussels, though he abandoned his studies because his grades in mathematics were insufficient, transferring to the painting course.  Delvaux’s earliest pieces are landscapes composed with a naturalistic palette, later leavened by Impressionism. As is usual for Belgians of this period, the Impressionism is more a form of vivacious naturalism with vibrant lighting effects and vigorous brushwork rather than sustained application of complimentary colour theory. Throughout the late 1920s he picked up and attempted to blend a welter of (often conflicting) influences: Renoir, Cézanne, Modigliani, Ensor. After 1925 one constant emerges: the human figure, often as a nude, as the principal subject. In the late 1920s Delvaux came into the orbit of Flemish Expressionists (less bold and strident than the Germans, they evolved a dull-hued, restrained style dwelling on figures in domestic settings, clearly displaying an attachment to realism).

Yet even as he was painting the most accomplished works of his career, something was nagging at him. He had seen the art of de Chirico and pondered Wiertz’s La Belle Rosine (see Jackdaw no. 95) and felt there was new territory to be discovered. (In 1922 he painted a view of the entrance to Musée Wiertz.) The example of Magritte proved a decisive spur. By 1935 his figures were becoming more normally proportioned, the palette broader and more conventional and the settings ever more precise and significant. He had arrived at his classic mature style.

What is the typical Delvaux? Although there are distinct phases, we can make some generalisations: the subjects are females, often nude, with dreamlike repose in the surrounding of fantastic architecture, generally a blend of classical, neo-classical and 19th century Belgian. Frequently used settings included train stations, town squares, beaches and temples, often nocturnal and deserted and almost exclusively urban rather than pastoral. The technique is direct, the lighting pellucid, the brushwork unobtrusive.

A typical work is Echo (1943) (currently in a Japanese museum): between ancient buildings at night time a woman walks along a road towards the picture plane; behind her are her echoes – two identical versions of her in the same pose. The ground is arid, indicating we are in Near East or Mediterranean lands. Nothing will ever change, no rain fall, no building deteriorate any further. The world we see is in a state of perfect stasis. Of all paintings (Surrealist or otherwise) these come closest to capturing dreamlike states. There is very little here that is literally impossible – no burning giraffes or floating rocks. The poetry resides in the mood evoked by arranging legible motifs.

Delvaux’s personal collection (as one might have guessed, the largest collection of Delvaux paintings in the world) is housed in a museum in St.-Idesbald, on the coast. To get to Museum Delvaux one takes the tram from Ostend south-west to Koksijde-St.-Idesbald (direction De Panne, zone 7, €2 per journey). During summer the one-hour journey with the dunes on one side and the sea on the other must be picturesque but out of season it is rather bleak. The museum is a low brick building in a residential lane less than ten minutes’ walk from the seafront. It was established in 1982, two years before Delvaux (who lived in Brussels most of his life and spent long periods on the coast) moved permanently to the area. The opening rooms cover the early years of tenebrism and Impressionism. A room is dedicated to views in watercolour of St. -Idesbald and its environs. There is a wall of various small drawn studies and sketches, none labelled, a collection of fragments more or less.

A masterpiece from a private collection, In Praise of Melancholy (1948), shows the painter at the height of his powers. This is one of a series of great reclining nudes that are marked by serene grandeur. Delvaux never painted figures larger or with more detail. The drapery is intensely coloured and the contrast crisp. Delvaux is an artist who used the nude but – great or not – he could not be called a great painter of the nude in the way Balthus might be described. Balthus is curious about the body – both its reality and its plastic potential when manipulated – whereas Delvaux wants to capture the essence that attracts him. Delvaux paints nudes but never nudity, figures but never flesh. Delvaux does enough to evoke the presence of a figure without going so far as to become naturalistic, something true for every element depicted. It is very rare for any sexual feeling to makes its presence felt and this only happens in a few drawings, never in the oil paintings.

The more one sees the more one understands that Delvaux was deeply involved with pre-Modern art, more so than any other Surrealist. He used the vocabulary, and to a lesser degree the technique, of Classical art with a Modern syntax. He employed motifs lifted from found sources and collaged them into settings where the motifs never quite settle. The first (and so far only) serious study of Delvaux’s art written in English is David Scott’s Surrealizing the Nude (1992). Scott’s thesis is that the artist set out to “problematise” academic Classicism. This confuses means for motive. Delvaux did not intend to agitate; in order to achieve the pictorial effects he wanted he had to distort norms of academic practice and naturalism. Although incongruities and irregularities are woven into the fabric of the pictures they are not the subject. Indeed, although these unorthodox combinations are not elided they are not expected to be noticed other than subliminally.

In 1941 Delvaux revived a conceit from ten years earlier and had skeletons acting as protagonists, inhabiting real domestic interiors – something his female nudes never do. He also tackled episodes of the Passion with skeletons: The Crucifixion, Deposition, Entombment and Lamentation  (though notably not the redeeming, mystical parts: the Resurrection and Ascension). These are very peculiar works – intense, bleak, detached yet not ironic and not notably pious – which paraphrase Netherlandish altarpieces. By prematurely curtailing the development of a scene at this stage – or by stripping flesh from Rogier van der Weyden’s Deposition (c. 1435) – the artist leaves the armature of religious iconography nakedly incomplete, thereby short circuiting viewer-subject empathy.

There are paintings including skeletons and female nudes. Delvaux’s encounter with the Spitzner Museum in 1932, a travelling show which juxtaposed lifelike Venuses in somnolent states with anatomical casts, postmortem photographs and skeletons, made a deep impression and led to immediate attempts to capture that frisson in two unsuccessful paintings.

Perhaps the most psychologically charged painting (and, to my mind, his most remarkable picture) is not here. La Visite (1939), the title of which can be translated as The Visit or more properly as The Visitation, the latter with religious overtones, is in a private collection. In a room a naked (rather than nude) woman holds her breasts as a naked young boy enters. He gazes at her breasts and she gazes at his pre-pubertal genitals. Overhead tiny angels trumpet the occurrence. It bears comparison with Balthus’s Guitar Lesson (1934) as a study of psychic tension and sexual discovery. It must have taken a degree of courage for Delvaux to paint such a picture. It is a tremendous, fraught, haunting image, all the more so for being unforced.

A painting such as Horizons (1962) shows what a playful painter Delvaux could be, beyond being a consummate image maker. It is one of a group of strongly horizontally orientated paintings of railways. Cadmium yellow powerfully illuminates the horizon and only slowly does one notice myriad sources of light: streetlamps, lanterns, house lights, train lights, signals, a paraffin lamp, the moon.  Seats from old-fashioned train carriages have been situated in the galleries. (Tellingly most of the few British visitors to Museum Delvaux are train enthusiasts rather than art enthusiasts.)

In a number of lit niches are puppets and model trains that Delvaux made while young, as well as spiral-bound sketchpads in which compositions are roughed out in ballpoint.  On large sheets he used the laborious technique of cross-hatching in ink then applying washes of ink or watercolour.

The painter’s eyesight deteriorated badly in his late eighties and eventually was extinguished totally. He painted his last oil in 1986 but continued making drawings until 1989, aged 92. Some of the framing of works on paper is unsympathetic and the lighting would benefit from an upgrade. Although the paintings suffer a little visually from a lack of natural light, the windowless isolation proves immersive. These aspects do not seriously detract from the charm of the museum. The great range and depth of the collection is remarkable. There are genuine masterpieces from all periods in spacious galleries with plenty of supporting material including models, source books, painting paraphernalia and personal documents. There is a recreation of Delvaux’s studio as it was at Avenue des Campanules, Boitsfort, Brussels.

Various figures marginal to Surrealism  (Leonor Fini, Claude Cahun and Hans Bellmer, with Louise Bourgeois reclaimed as a Surrealist) have enjoyed renewed attention of late. Delvaux is no less complex than Fini and Bellmer. Delvaux’s art, rich and sophisticated, can be best appreciated detached from Surrealism. Delvaux’s blend of Classicism, Symbolism and Surrealism will never be as popular as the art of Dalí or as accessible as Magritte’s. It deserves to be taken more seriously than it has been. If we assess the status of artist in relation to his ability to compel and fascinate then Delvaux truly is a great artist.

Museum Paul Delvaux, Avenue Paul Delvaux Laan 42, 8670 St.-Idesbald- Koksijde, Belgium, entrance €8. Check for opening hours. www.delvauxmuseum.com, e-mail: info@delvauxmuseum.com

Alexander Adams is an artist and writer based in Berlin.

 The Jackdaw, Mar-Apr 2011

 

The house-museums of two Belgian masters of the 19th Century shed light on artistic and social concerns of the era. As case studies they exemplify dominant thematic trends in both halves of that century – Romanticism in the first half and Realism in the second.

Antoine Wiertz (1806-1865) was born to an impoverished family in Dinant, Wallonia (later Belgium). After studying at Antwerp Art Academy, he won the (Belgian) Prix de Rome at a second try, in 1832.  His grand manner was Romantic and painterly, derived from Rubens. His subjects anticipate those of the Symbolists. Though Wiertz made his name with historical and religious compositions, the allegories and  (often gruesome) scenes of contemporary life are his most distinctive contributions to art.

In 1850, partly in order to establish Belgian art as independent of French influence (led by the School of David; J-L David (1714-1825) spent his last years in Brussels) the newly formed state agreed to build a studio and dwelling for the benefit of Wiertz, the first truly “Belgian” artist. The initial agreement was that the artist would donate works to the state but it seems Wiertz early on had the idea of turning the studio into a permanent museum. The government drew the line at Wiertz’s proposal to fund the construction of a ruined temple in the studio grounds. Upon the artist’s death the combined house and studio became possessions of the state. Both building and grounds have remained unchanged since 1868, now a fragment of a lost age lodged under the glass towers of the European Parliament.

Photographs leave one unprepared for the vast scale of the studio and its contents. The studio is 35m long, 15m wide and 16m high, accommodating gargantuan canvases almost as tall and wide as the walls. Subjects are suitably grand: the fall of the rebel angels, Christ triumphant, Homeric scenes. The paintings offer a serious challenge to conservators. Aside from the technical experimentation discussed later, their size presents difficulties. Expanses of canvas bulge down from tilted frames, unsupported from behind. Extensive restoration of Musée Wiertz (completed in 2009) involved reconstruction of the roof and repair of the walls, which have been returned to their original grey colour.

If you can find anything written about Wiertz, it is almost all negative. Novotny gives Wiertz three sentences in his Painting and Sculpture in Europe 1780-1880, the last being “His wild-eyed hysteria is a mere caricature of real passion.” The disdain and distaste for Wiertz is evident from the start of his career. The first version of Greeks and Trojans Fighting over the Body of Patrocles (first version 1836, Liège, second version 1844, Musée Wiertz) was skied at the Paris Salon of 1839 and mocked by critics. Wiertz became a national cause, though one wonders what misgivings Belgians must have had about their standard bearer. In terms of grandiose aspirations, hyperbolic acclaim and posthumous neglect, the story of Wiertz’s art is comparable to that of GF Watts’s.

The only good word anyone seems to have is for La Belle Rosine (1847), Wiertz’s most famous invention. This painting, influential and much reproduced, is excepted as “a good chord on a bad piano”. It shows a nude woman contemplating a skeleton. The alternative title is Two Young Women. Now very fragile, the painting is unlikely to leave Brussels again. Death and the Maiden is an oft-reprised subject but there can’t have been a more compelling version than this. The woman, garland in her hair, gazes with hypnotic calmness into the vacant eye sockets of the anatomist’s specimen. Below the suspended partial skeleton (missing its leg bones) are fragments of an ancient statue. A label on the skull carries the inscription “La Belle Rosine”. One might interpret this two ways. The painter is using a graphic intervention to insert the title of the picture or – more likely – the label identifies the skeleton as that of Rosine. (The issue of titling is a curious one. Wiertz did give certain pictures exact titles. It seems fixed, artist-given titles only began in earnest with the advent of the Paris salons in the early 18th Century. Before then works were discussed by topic. Vasari refers to “a Madonna by the hand of…”; “a Dead Christ in the lap of Our Lady, surrounded by many figures”; “a panel made for the Duke of Urbino”; and so forth. The idea that paintings should have a definite title is essentially a modern construction, in that it derives from the practice of organised temporary public exhibitions. Some scenes of a narrative or anecdotal character can depend to a degree on a title. Think of When did you last see your Father? by WF Yeames in the Walker Art Gallery.)

Little work is at the level of La Belle Rosine, though there are other paintings worth attention. La Liseuse de Romans (The Novel Reader) (1853) has a recumbent female nude reading on a bed, unaware of the figure reaching towards a book beside her. The Devil’s Mirror (1856) adapts Goya’s Maja paintings, with one canvas showing a clothed woman at a mirror and the pendant with the woman unclothed, the Devil hidden behind her mirror. A modest trompe l’oeil still-life painted when Wiertz was a student is skilfully designed and realised. There is a sensitive painting of the artist’s dog asleep on a chair.

Wiertz was a committed humanitarian and campaigner for social reform. The Burnt Child was originally entitled If there were Crêches and was inspired by a newspaper report of an unmarried mother who left her child by a fire to keep warm while she worked. When she returned she discovered the child burned. The Premature Burial (1854) shows a terrified man forcing open his own coffin marked “MORT DU CHOLERA”. It is both a sensational scene of horror and social criticism of the not-infrequent phenomenon of premature interment of cholera victims. Doctors could be lax about distinguishing between death and coma. Some victims were regarded as hopeless cases and deliberately consigned to the tomb while still alive.

The evidence of carved versions of Wiertz’s models suggests he was an able sculptor. His Triumph of Light (1860-2) is said to have inspired Bartholdi’s Statue of Liberty (1876/1886), though the resemblance seems coincidental.

To describe Wiertz as inconsistent is an understatement. His triptych of Christ in the Tomb (1839), with wing panels of female nudes, is badly misjudged. The Suicide (1854) shows a man shooting himself in the head with a pistol. A praying attendant angel has closed her eyes, as well she might. There are many other pictures that prompt a viewer to wonder “What could he have been thinking?” There can hardly have been another artist who has failed and succeeded to such extreme degrees.

The depiction of a guillotining may have been well meant (the artist apparently attended a public execution and was appalled) but the result is incoherent and ineffective. Additionally, it is painted in Wiertz’s essence technique and has deteriorated appreciably. Noting the troublesome reflection from conventional varnished oil paintings, Wiertz devised a technique to combat sheen. He used essence, which is oil paint with the binder largely extracted (usually done by allowing the oil medium to soak into an absorbent substance, such as blotting paper), mixing it with turpentine or a mineral thinner and applying it directly to unprimed flax. This technique effectively removed gloss but over the years it has proved prone to fading. Worse still, the low proportion of binder to pigment has left the paint powdery. These fragile paintings are not possible to frame or clean, prohibitively expensive to restore and now impossible to move.

Alongside criticisms of morbidity, hubris and sensationalism (all reasonable reproaches) is another charge, that of titillation. (A current guidebook mentions “saucy girls in a state of undress”.) This is more debatable. If one looks at the figures in question, there is less nudity than one finds in Rubens, the female anatomies are not entirely convincing and there is nothing overtly sexual in the poses, even for the period. It comes as no surprise to discover Wiertz was homosexual (or at least bisexual); an idea first publicly aired by the critic Camille Lemonnier, who lived very close to the artist.

Drawings and small painted sketches are strongly reminiscent of Blake’s in their muscular Mannerism, though Wiertz understood anatomy better. The two artists share many characteristics (ambition, stubbornness, independence, keen social conscience and admiration for Michelangelo), though at his best Wiertz is more than Blake’s equal in inventiveness, power and skill. On consideration, the received views of “Blake the Visionary” and “Wiertz the Deluded” turn out to be not only disputable but reversible. Didn’t Wiertz put his sense of justice into his art rather than into theological disquisitions at 12 shillings apiece?

Wiertz’s aspirations may have been grandiose but his own circumstances were straitened. He painted allegories for political and artistic reasons and kept them in his studio for the nation. To eke out a living he painted portraits. The decorative edges of some canvases came about because he could not afford frames. Upon his death his possessions were found to be few, his furniture to be borrowed and his clothes to be much mended.

The museum’s over 200 works constitute the majority of Wiertz’s (identified) output and the delicate condition of the most important pieces entail that a meaningful retrospective outside of the museum will never be possible. This fact and the unique ambience make a visit to Musée Wiertz a fascinating experience. It is hard to look at the anonymous pastel of Wiertz on his deathbed without feeling a touch of sympathy and admiration for this proud, difficult man.

Meunier is an artist of a different stamp. The only things Meunier and Wiertz shared were a nationality, profession and an interest in social reform. Constantin Meunier (1831-1905) took the plight of workers in Belgium’s farms and heavy industries as his principal subject relatively late in his career (around 1875). (The few early History and travel scenes on display in the museum are undistinguished.)  His principal medium was sculpture, though he was a skilled draughtsman and a competent painter. His slightly over-life-size bronze figures have the heroism of Rodin tempered by the Realism of Courbet’s Stone Breakers  (1849-1850; exhibited at the Brussels Salon of 1851). The coalminers and iron workers of the Borinage are ennobled through working for the common good. The sculptor then further dignifies them by raising them to art. By so doing the artist himself works for the benefit of his subjects and for society more generally.

The house and studio were purpose built for the sculptor over 1899-1900. The main salon is connected via a long corridor to the sculpture studio built in the grounds of the house. The studio accommodates a number of statues and maquettes, with a few larger paintings. Only a fraction of the collection is on show. The property and collection were acquired by the state from Meunier’s heirs in 1936.

The sculptures are all well conceived and executed with a blend of verisimilitude and idealism that became adopted as the template for Socialist Realist public monuments throughout the following century. Few of those sculptors had the talent or sensitivity necessary to attain Meunier’s consistently high standards. Full-bas reliefs, executed in bronze and smaller than life size, convey the volume and presence of figures and the interaction of them with their environment. In the mine one feels the claustrophobic closeness of the rough walls; in the field one sees the toilers against the swaying striations of tall wheat stalks. His pictures are effective but the unremitting earth hues – though honest – are obvious and deadening. (Van Gogh was an admirer of his, making 13 references to Meunier’s art in his letters.) A large triptych on the subject of coal mining has little of the energy and economy of the drawings.

Let us hope these old-fashioned museums remain unchanged while becoming better known. Both are windows on a past well worth looking through.

The author would like to thank Dr Brita Velghe for her assistance in researching this article.

Alexander Adams is an artist and writer based in Berlin.

The Jackdaw, Jan-Feb 2011