RKD STUDIES

This article has tried to show how and why the works of Ciamberlani, Delville, Fabry and Montald – and by extension of Belgian idealist symbolism in general – could gain momentum at the 1906 International Exhibition in Milan. Its revival in 1906 - in between the births of Fauvism (1905) and Cubism (1907) - was remarkable, because by the end of the nineteenth century, art critics had generally considered it as an ‘old’ avant-garde and as ‘retrograde’. Furthermore, as mentioned before, in 1920, Ciamberlani, Delville, Fabry and Montald would retroactively reinforce their role as pioneers by signing a manifesto for a new Society for Monumental Art. To this day the society is widely known for the decoration of the Cinquantenary Arcades in Brussels [30-31].

The successful exhibition in Milan by these four Belgian artists made a decisive contribution to the recognition of idealist symbolism as a ‘new movement’. All of these painters had previously visited Italy to refine their studies, and they now took Italy’s grand Italian artistic tradition, in particular fresco painting, as a source of inspiration for new idealist canvases. Their personal and professional motives coincided with the ambition of the Italian government to reckon the traditionalist image of Italy in matters of art, and to show how modernity was reinvigorated by the country’s glorious past. It did so by promoting a campaign of international exhibitions that had started with the Venice Biennale in 1895 and reached another peak with the 1906 exhibition in Milan.

More importantly, the successes of the Belgian symbolists were favored and facilitated by a Belgian national agenda. The 1906 exhibition provided the perfect international stage to claim these symbolist works as a ‘new’ national aesthetic, in response to the ongoing debate on monumental art in Belgium. This new aesthetics also provided a modern and persuasive shape and form for the colonialist and imperialist discourse the Belgian government sought to promote through international cultural politics, first and foremost through their participation in exhibitions.

Finally, these developments were favored by a transnational art system that had emerged at the beginning of the century, in which critics and institutions worked together across borders. A key role in this system was played by intermediaries – correspondents, liaisons, national agents or ‘cultural brokers’ – in the Belgian case, first of all, Hippolyte Fierens-Gevaert. The monumental context of large-scale exhibitions and new museographic practices provided a fertile and worthy frame for the appreciation of large canvases such as the works of the Belgian four. The representative setting of the national pavilion at the exhibition contributed even further to the monumental status of these works and the reputations of these painters, not only in Italy but even more so in their own country. The Milan international exhibition of 1906 was a kind of laboratory in the hands of Fierens-Gevaert. By his doing, Ciamberlani, Delville, Fabry, and Montald, as well as the Belgian architects involved in ‘1906’ found their recognition as leaders of idealist and monumental art in Belgium, something he claimed to be inevitable after their successes in Milan.¹

30
Jean Delville, Jean Lahaye and Jean Van Asbrouck,
La Belgique héroïque: la Victoire,
mosaic, 300 x 290 cm,
Cinquantenary Arcades, Brussels

31
Émile Fabry, Jean Lahaye and Jean Van Asbrouck,
La Belgique pacifique: la Vie matérielle,
mosaic, 300 x 290 cm,
Cinquantenary Arcades, Brussels