LÉON SPILLIAERT

(1881-1946)

Deux messieurs et une courtisane sur la digue au clair de lune; Twee heren en een courtisane op de zeedijk bij maanlicht

Footnotes

The authenticity of this work has kindly been confirmed by Dr. Anne Adriaens-Pannier. This work will be included in the forthcoming Léon Spilliaert catalogue raisonné, currently being prepared.

Provenance
Odilon-Jean Périer or Gilbert Périer Collection, Brussels.
Private collection, Belgium (by descent from the above).

The present work belonged to one of the Périer brothers, who were important art patrons and especially collectors of Surrealist art in Belgium. Gilbert Périer commissioned a fresco by Paul Delvaux for his home, which is probably the largest Belgian art work ever made.

Following his marriage, the oeuvre of Belgian Symbolist Léon Spilliaert underwent a dramatic change from the more sombre work of his early years. Spilliaert married in 1916 and soon after became father to Madeleine. He left Ostend at the beginning of 1917 with the intention of joining the Pacifist movement in Switzerland, however, the events of the First World War prevented him from successfully relocating his young family to Geneva. He then settled in Brussels but, inevitably, pined for the sea and coastal atmosphere of his native Ostend. After experimenting with lithography, he discovered a new medium of expression which delighted him – watercolour. He was immediately won over by the luminosity of this water-based paint which forced him to work quickly, manipulating the paint in the same way that he had worked the India ink of his earlier works.

Having abandoned his lexicon of dark and unsettling images, he began to delve into domestic matters, depicting family life and his growing daughter, but also drawing fantastical scenes derived from his fertile imagination. The brilliance of colour and translucent quality of the watercolour lent itself well to the expression of his whimsical subjects. After a long absence, a return to the sea in 1920 delighted the artist. Confronted with the freedom and expansiveness of the sea once again, his imagination was stimulated and renewed afresh, and he rejoiced in depicting phantasmagoric scenes inspired by his inner dream world. Gifted with a sense of cosmic interpretation, his sharp eye was adept at allowing small details to conjure entirely novel atmospheres for his compositions. A shell, for example, would prompt an association with the Birth of Venus, while a few languid bathers could become the pretext for evoking for the gods of the sea: Neptune and Venus.

Spilliaert employed the same fantastical colours to portray the lives of the holidaymakers who came in large numbers to enjoy the varied pleasures of the seaside resort of Ostend – known as the 'Queen of the Beaches'. During the day, the elegant visitors lounged by the sea or thermal baths, but by night more licentious offerings loomed on the terraces or on the esplanade of the seawall. In the present work, a courtesan with a large feather in her hat is depicted under a crescent moon. Her scant outfit, loose skirt, and shoulders draped with a silk shawl revealing her chest, leave no doubt as to her profession as she leans nonchalantly on the rails on the promenade patiently waiting for the two gentlemen to notice her. The spontaneous and impulsive character of the scene resides as much in the freedom displayed in the execution of the silhouettes and natural environment as in the loose structure of the composition as a whole. While the underlying pencil sketch delineates the volumes of the forms, the gauzy washes of watercolour make the beach, sky and sea vibrate.

Despite the slightly daring subject, the whole composition resonates with a feeling of harmony and poetry. Through the creation of a fantasy world, Spilliaert is able to play with representations of reality: presenting the appearance of reality while simultaneously showing reality to be nothing more than a beautiful trompe-l'oeil. This was a device which served to prompt his viewers to question the validity of the scene, and it is in this sense perhaps that one can understand Spilliaert's response to a question from a local newspaper, the Carillon, in 1925: 'My only shortcoming is the artifice'.

Text by Dr. Anne Adriaens-Pannier.