RKD STUDIES

By the time of the 1906 exhibition, Belgian idealist artists were no longer considered just exponents of a movement praising academic tradition and Italian painting, even though all of them had received an academic training and had visited Italy to refine their studies. In some cases they had also been the recipients of the prestigious Prix de Rome, as was the case of Montald and Delville.

The absence of idealist art at Italian exhibitions until 1906 is an important fact, that can help to explain why these artists felt the need to show some large idealist paintings.¹ At the same time, Italy provided an artistic setting more favorable to their work and ideas than their Belgian homeland. These painters had all travelled to Italy and were passionate about Italian art. They introduced decorative canvases, sometimes realized with traditional techniques like wax or tempera, or mixed media. At the time of their materialization, they had had few opportunities to present their monumental works in Belgium, and they were usually misunderstood or scorned; furthermore, their paintings had never been exhibited in Milan. For these reasons, the 1906 International Exhibition in Milan was a true ‘Idealist Sancta-sanctorum’ for these artists.²

Fabry and Ciamberlani
As we can see from the plan [14], Fabry and Ciamberlani exhibited one in front of the other in the hall of honor. Both artists had sent in works that had originally been designed for the Congo pavilion at the International Exhibition of Liège in 1905.

L’expansion coloniale [15] by Fabry is now located in the town hall of Woluwe-Saint-Pierre. The artist started working on the canvas around 1903-1905. In a preparatory drawing, now kept in the maison-atelier in Brussels, he designed a hybrid creature, half-wagon, half-boat, driven by four horses with the help of some men, and an upstanding female figure [16].³ With this design, he referred to the Parthenon’s frieze [17], of which plasters were displayed in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels.⁴ It is remarkable that in the finished painting the woman is not naked, as was common in idealist works, but wears a yellow drape.⁵ For a work that is clearly political, Fabry relied on his academic training.

He also referred to a canvas by Jules van Biesbroeck (1873-1965), Launch of the Argo [18] which has recently re-appeared after 130 years of oblivion and which Fabry certainly knew because Van Biesbroeck had realized it when he was just 16 as a ‘revenge’ after he failed to win the Prix de Rome in 1889, when Fabry had also competed.⁶ But Fabry must have known Van Biesbroeck’s work also because it had obtained a special mention at the Salon in Paris in 1890.⁷ While references to academic models are predominant in the preparatory drawings, the final, truly symbolist painting, shows clear borrowings of Italian mannerism – Michelangelo and Pontormo’s nudes – which are punctuated with personal signs such as the roses, a topos in Fabry’s works.

14
Plan of the Belgian Pavilion of Decorative Arts at the 1906 International Exhibition in Milan

15
Émile Fabry,
L’effort (Expansion colonial), ca. 1905,
oil on canvas, 438 x 684 cm,
©Administration communale de Woluwe-Saint-Pierre / Gemeentearchief van Sint-Pieters-Woluwe

16
Émile Fabry,
Preparatory study for L’effort (Expansion colonial), ca. 1903-1905,
pencil, crayon and oil on paper, 50,50 x 82,50 cm,
©Administration communale de Woluwe Saint-Pierre / Gemeentearchief van Sint-Pieters-Woluwe, inv. no. inv. 11029510

In the same space, Ciamberlani’s Vie sereine [19] seems to contrast with the exuberance of Fabry’s L’expansion coloniale. The influence of the French painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898) is tangible [20] and not accidental. Puvis was considered a master by idealist artists especially for the harmony of his work, the use of colors and the iconography inspired by the Italian Quattrocento. Although it was painted already in 1902, the Ciamberlani’s Vie sereine was probably chosen because of its ties with Puvis and for its references to Italian Renaissance painting, not just Botticelli but also Titian and Giorgione.⁸

Delville and Montald
In the hall of monumental paintings, we find Montald and Delville’s works that were both rewarded with gold medals at this exhibition. La Ruée humaine (The Human Rush) [21] is a huge canvas (5x10m) that Montald had already shown at the Triennial Salon in Brussels in 1903 and at the Secession of Vienna in 1904. Previously, Montald had won the Prix de Rome in 1886, he had exhibited at the official salons and at the Salons de l’Art Idéaliste (1896-1898) organized by Delville, but nonetheless he had not received official recognition for his symbolist work, even though he had become the first teacher of decorative art at the academy of Brussels in 1897. As in Fabry’s work, we have an interlacing of bodies, common in idealist paintings, starting with Montald’s lost work L’antagonisme social (1889) and Delville’s Les trésors de Sathan (Sathan’s Treasures, 1895) [22].

Jean Delville showed his masterpiece, painted in Italy, LʼÉcole de Platon (The School of Plato) [23], together with some smaller sculptures by Constantin Meunier (1831-1905), who had recently died [24].⁹ Delville was the leader of the idealist movement and was faced with a series of obstacles until his LʼÉcole de Platon was acclaimed in his country in 1898, on his return from Rome.¹⁰ This canvas, in which esoteric issues and the influence of Italian art are entwined, was displayed in a blue niche, shown in its best conditions, considering that it was left in a modelling class of Brussel’s Academy since 1898.¹¹ For Delville, despite a long stay in Italy between 1896 and 1898 as a consequence of his Prix de Rome, this was his first public experience in Italy.¹²

21
Constant Montald,
La Ruée humaine (unknown location) and the small sculptures of Constantin Meunier.
Photo Varischi and Artico

22
Jean Delville,
Les trésors de Sathan, 1895,
oil on canvas, 258 x 268 cm,
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, inv. no. 4575