through-the-night-softly @through-the-night-softly - Tumblr Blog

rossodimarte

‘The Dream of the three kings’, Queen Mary Psalter, 14th century

thunderstruck9

Anto-Carte (Belgian, 1886-1954), Mélancolie, 1921. Watercolour and pastel on paper, 76 x 67 cm.

random-brushstrokes

Alix d'Anethan - Les premières communiantes (1885)

pwlanier

ALFRED STEVENS (BELGIAN, 1823-1906)

Le Tréport

signed 'AStevens' (lower left); inscribed and dated 'Le Tréport/Octobre.1890' (on the reverse)

oil on canvas

32 1/8 x 25 3/4 in.

Christie’s

pinkstarlightcomputer

Alfred Stevens "l'Ours blanc" Oil on canvas 21.8 x 70 cm (8⁵/₈ x 27¹/₂ inches)

pinkstarlightcomputer

Valerius de Saedeleer 'Spring blossom'

pwlanier

Good Friday Procession at Seville

Nicaise de Keyser

Art in Flanders

gacougnol

Victor Guidalevitch

Bruges

1940

darkathletealienprune

Sainte-Suzanne par François Duquesnoy. Paris, ND de Lorette. Circa 1630.

lionofchaeronea

Omphale, Artus Quellinus the Elder (1609-1688)

beautiful-belgium

From Rubens’ essay ‘De Imitatione Staturum’

To some painters such study may be highly beneficial, to others detrimental to the point it can destroy their art. To achieve, however, the highest degree of perfection in painting, one should, I am convinced, know the works of antiquity intimately and be deeply versed in their understanding.

To make use of them in painting, on the other hand, insight into the characteristic laws of that art is needed, so that the painter does not transfer in any way what in sculpture is by necessity preconditioned by the material in which the sculptor works, to wit the stone. Many inexperienced painters, and even skilled ones, do not make the proper differentiation between the material and the form expressed in that material, they do not differentiate between the stone and the statue worked in stone, nor do they take into regard how far the artist may be constrained by the nature of the marble and how far he may be able to express his inner idea, which is independent from that material…

Those who have grasped this principle of differentiation with the necessary acuteness, cannot devote enough study to the statues of antiquity for in these misguided times how little we degenerate mortals are able to achieve. We are earth-bound, a lesser breed inferior in insight and judgement.