Éliane de Meuse

Éliane de Meuse
Born Éliane de Meuse
(1899-08-09)9 August 1899
Brussels, Belgium
Died 3 February 1993(1993-02-03) (aged 93)
Forest, Brussels, Belgium
Nationality Belgian
Education Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, Brussels from 1916 to 1920 – inscription number 18568
Known for Painting and Music (Violinist)
Notable work Daphnis et Chloé (225 x 180 cm), rewarded by the Prix Godecharle in 1921
Movement None. However some historians refer the very beginning of her career to Impressionism and to Fauvisme brabançon
Awards The Godecharle prize 1921 (the first time won by a woman in the story of the contest)

Éliane Georgette Diane de Meuse (9 August 1899 – 3 February 1993) was a Belgian painter. She was the wife of Max Constant Armand Van Dyck. They met at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, Brussels where they attended the courses of the same professors.

Biography

Eliane de Meuse took her first drawing lessons at the age of fourteen with Ketty Hoppe, the wife of the Belgian painter Victor Gilsoul.

She also trained in the studio of the genre painter Guillaume Van Strydonck, member of Les XX [1] and James Ensor's friend. At the same time, she received advice from the sculptor Marcel Rau, Prix de Rome 1908.

In 1916, Meuse decided to become a painter and joined L'Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, Brussels.[2] There, she met the young painter Max Van Dyck, (23 December 1902, (Brussels – Schaerbeek) – 26 December 1992, (Brussels – Ixelles) and married him in 1922. The latter had won the great Prix de Rome (Belgium) in 1920 when he was only 17 years old, a sensational event widely commented on in the Belgian press. He later taught the Decorative arts at the Académie des beaux-arts d'Anderlecht of which he eventually became the director.

At the Academy (ARBA, Brussels) Meuse was the student of the Symbolist painter Jean Delville and the portraitist Herman Richir.

From all of these influences, her art developed into a style similar to Post-Impressionism, her subject matter including portraits, figures, seascapes, landscapes and still lifes. In some of her latest paintings underlying abstract structure can be observed.

Critics noted that Eliane de Meuse had inherited much from the Belgian Luminism, movement of the very early 20th century, which combined aspects of Realism (Realist visual arts), Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism. It got its name from the style of Emile Claus and a few other painters, grouped in a circle called Vie et Lumière (Life and light) of which Claus was one of the main founders.

Charles Bernard, the foremost Belgian critic at that time [3] wrote that he considered the art of Eliane de Meuse as aimed towards a pure, clear artistic ideal, without any selfish motives. He felt that the artist did not belong to the Impressionism of Emile Claus, so close to French Pointillism, but that she was the spiritual daughter of James Ensor.

In an article published on 22 October 1936 in the Nation belge, he commented on Meuse's first exhibition in these words: A discovery... an artist that reinvents James Ensor and Rik Wouter's impressionism, that enriches impressionism with new elements, in terms of richness and interpretation indicating the presence of a personality... This exhibition took place in the Palais des Beaux-Arts (Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels), where a collection of paintings representing the outcome of fourteen years of dedication in the pursuit of personal expression was presented.[4]

The same year, in Le Courrier d’Anvers, Sander Pierron,[5] another influential critic, wrote that he believed this young artist was called to a great destiny. He described Eliane de Meuse as a born colourist with a prodigious talent: Since Rik Wouters such talent had not been observed... she is a colourist able to seize the tiniest variations of light and uses them with harmony as a musician should do with notes, displaying a personal feeling.

K. de Bergen also noted the interesting use of colour in her works and added that she demonstrates that: the colour possesses its own truth.[6]

Another critic signing his article by L. J. considered that we must place Eliane de Meuse amongst the most sensitive painters such as Édouard Manet or Marcel Jefferys.[7]

In his monograph dedicated to Eliane de Meuse Paul Caso wrote that: Every type of art work has been tackled, with a natural inclination for still lifes (frequently with wonderful flowers from her garden), the true nub of her work, often studied as a pile of objects, masks, flowers, draperies, many times assembled around the same chair from her studio, a chair which acquires a real personality, in an apparent disorder of forms and colours.[8]

In 1921, she won the Prix Godecharle created in 1881 by Napoleon Godecharle, the son of Gilles-Lambert Godecharle. This prize gave her the opportunity to travel in Italy, the shock of a whole civilization, the ceaseless return to Renaissance sources.[9]

Main individual exhibitions

International group exhibitions

Eliane de Meuse in her studio with Mrs Youl Frans, the Belgian Anto Carte painter's wife, 1937.

Some of her paintings

Notes

  1. ↑ Solange de Behr – Musée d’Art moderne et d’Art contemporain Liège – 1994
  2. ↑ To celebrate its 300th anniversary, the Academy of Fine Arts pays tribute to all the great artists who have passed there, such as Victor Horta (Director 1927-1931), Henry Lacoste (Director 1954-1957), Amédée Lynen, Victor Servranckx, Eliane de Meuse, Robert Schuiten, Albert Mangonès, Claude Strebelle, Max Van Dyck, Paul Delvaux, René Magritte, Vincent van Gogh, James Ensor,...
  3. ↑ Caso Paul in monograph Eliane de Meuse edited by Prefilm, Brussels, p. 9, 1991.
  4. ↑ Caso Paul in monograph Eliane de Meuse edited by Prefilm, Brussels, p. 9, 1991.
  5. ↑ Sander Pierron in Le Courrier d’Anvers, 1936
  6. ↑ K. de Bergen in Le Journal des Beaux-Arts, 23 October 1936
  7. ↑ L. J. in La Flandre Libérale (Gand), 1 November 1936.
  8. ↑ Caso Paul in monograph Eliane de Meuse edited by Prefilm, Brussels, 1991.
  9. ↑ Guy Dotremont in Les Concours Godecharle ont cent ans 1881-1981, 1981.
  10. ↑ Christian Desclez in catalog of the exhibition dedicated to Fauvisme brabançon, 1996

Documentary broadcast on television

Personnalité à domicile : Éliane de Meuse interviewed by Éric Russon, Télé-Bruxelles, 1991

Further reading

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