Emile Claus

After taking pains to persuade his father to enrol him at the Académie des Beaux-arts in Antwerp, Emile Claus quickly moved away from his classical training, preferring to devote himself to plein air painting. From 1883, he settled in Astène in Belgium, on the banks of Lys, where he painted many views of the surrounding countryside.

Dated August 1896, the present View of Veere already displays the quick, luminous brushstroke typical of the artist. Influenced by French Impressionism, which he discovered during a stay in Paris 1889, Emile Claus adapted his learning to create a manner all his own: laying on the paint with lively brushstrokes, he conveys the impression of a work painted from life, capturing a fleeting moment. However, this rapid approach does not in any way detract from the precision of the drawing and the naturalistic colours. Bathed in light, the composition faithfully renders the contrasts between the red roofs, the vibrant green of the vegetation and the blue of the sky, evoking the clear light of summer.

At the dawning of the twentieth century, Emile Claus’s luminous palette was a source of inspiration for many Belgian painters in the Ghent region. Known collectively as the Luminists, in 1904 most of them came together as the group Vie et Lumière, an artistic circle notably including Léon de Smet, Georges Lemmen and James Ensor.