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The Belgian Painters

[Paint- Liberty Bird- Magritte]One of the best-known Belgian modern painter: Magritte

BELGIUM: A LAND OF PAINTERS...
Belgium has a rich history in the art of painting. Famous painters like Bruegel, the Van Eycks, Rubens,Memling, Roger de la Pasture are Belgians. Just think about: the technique of the Western Art oil painting was invented in Bruges, this famous Belgian boom-town of the Middle Ages, where so many artists concentrated to be near the rich and the powerful of that time.
I have no intention to give here a lecture about the history of painting, neither an encyclopedic view of the Belgian artists . Belgium as a matter of fact was and still is a land of painters.

[Bruegel paint]
Bruegel: winter landscape >>


MODERN ART IN THE BRUSSELS UNDERGROUND STATIONS!
I will concentrate here more on some very well-known modern Belgian; however these top artists are not always identified as Belgian by the general public.
I hope this page will give you the desire to explore more about Belgium and its painters... Plenty is to discover: very good museums all over the country, rich galleries, a lot of excellent artists in the graphic arts.
Art is part of the daily environment, and in Brussels the underground system has its major stations decorated by modern Belgian artists like Sommeville, Pol Bury, Alechinsky, and many others... and even one is devoted to Hergé and his comics characters like Tintin, the Thompsons, Calculuus!!



FAMOUS BELGIAN MODERN PAINTERS


You will find here a selection of well-known Belgian painters. Other links in these pages will document you further about the modern development of the painting art in Belgium.

INTERESTED BY BELGIAN MODERN ART? CHECK THESE LINKS...

JAMES ENSOR

1860-1949



This painter cannot be dissociated from his hometown Ostende, city on the shore of the North Sea, very famous "tourist spot" at the end of the 19th Century, eclectic and cosmopolitan.
Ensor was never well accepted as painter during his life, due to his very critical way of depicting social life and his contemporaries in his drawings.
A mixing of some impressionism techniques with expressionism settings in his compositions and characters gave to most of his works a very particular touch. Grotesque, masks and semi-fantastic scenes are typical characteristics of this great artist.
Figuration or symbolic for death is often present as well. Very accentuated colors contribute to create the very special Ensor's ambience.
"L'entrée Triomphale du Christ à Bruxelles" - The Triumphant Entry of Christ in Brussels- is considered as one of his masterpieces which is now in the Getty Museum (California- USA).
James Ensor is certainly one of the precursors of the Modern Art in painting. His house in Ostende is now a small museum with memorabilia of the painter.

[Bath at Ostende- James Ensor]
TO KNOW MORE ABOUT ENSOR...

The Baths in Ostende...


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