A concise description of
FLANDERS

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Although Flanders is one of the most builded areas in Europe, since many centuries ago, architects are often unknown, due to the medieval tradition of anonymity. Some are known and famous in their days. Many Flemish architects and masons migrated to neighbouring countries, especially to England, where they progressively founded an arcitectural tradition from Renaissance on.

   André Beauneveu (Valenciennes c.1350 - Bourges 1406)

Sculptor, painter and illuminator, born at Valenciennes, then in the County of Flanders. He worked for the French court, the Flemish Count Lodewijk van Male, and the Duke Jean de Berry at Bourges (F).

Four of the royal effigies in Saint-Denis, Paris, come from his workshop (Philip VI, John II, Charles V and his queen). His sculpture work includes an alabaster statue of St. Catherine (1372-73) in the church of Onze-Lieve-Vrouwe, Kortrijk. Beauneveu's style in sculpture and painting looked forward to the general Flemish trend towards naturalism in the 15th century.

To the most beautiful illuminations in Europe belong the "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry" and the "Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame". The latter were begun about 1384 by an artist very close to the Parement Master, but was left unfinished. Between 1405 and 1409 three pages were painted by André Beauneveu. In 1413 the still incomplete manuscript appears in an inventory compiled by the Duke's "registrar", Robinet d'Etampes, who shortly thereafter divided it into two parts. The finished section was kept by Robinet, and the rest was acquired by the House of Bavaria-Holland, which promptly commissioned the Van Eyck brothers, Jan and Hubert, to complete it. (more)

   Jan Appelmans (also Jean Amel de Boulogne, 15th century)

He was from Bonen, now Boulogne, in the southern Netherlands. He became architect of Antwerp Cathedral (Onze Lieve Vrouw, Notre Dame, 1352-1411). The construction was most likely headed by De Waghemakere. (Antwerp cathedral)

   Claus Sluter (also Claes de Slutere van Herlam, Haarlem, Holland c. 1350 - Dijon, Burgundy 1406)

In 1379 he is listed in the records of the stonemasons' guild in Brussels. From ducal archives he is known to have entered in 1385 the service of Philip II the Bold, duke of Burgundy, who was ruler of the Netherlands.

Philip founded the Carthusian monastery of Champmol at Dijon in 1383 and made its chapel a dynastic mausoleum adorned with sculptures by Sluter. In 1389 Sluter succeeded as chief sculptor to the duke, and in that year he began carving the portal sculptures. In 1396 he brought to Dijon his nephew Claus de Werve and more sculptors from Flanders to assist in his numerous ducal commissions. 

Sluter, an innovator in art, moved beyond the prevailing French taste for graceful figures, delicate and elegant movement, and fluid falls of drapery. In his handling of mass, he also moved beyond the concern with expressive volumes visible in the sculptures of André Beauneveu, an eminent contemporary who worked for Philip's brother Jean, Duke de Berry. The grandeur of Sluter's forms can only be paralleled in Flemish painting by the van Eycks and Robert Campin or in Italian sculpture several decades later. Spiritualist and naturalist in one, Sluter epitomized in sculpture the growing awareness of an individualized nature with discoverable laws and an enduring grandeur. (more)

Cornelis de Vriendt (Antwerp 1514-1575)

The De Vriendts are an Antwerp family of noted stonemasons, architects, sculptors, and painters. Floris de Vriendt, patriarch of the family, was a 15th-century stonemason. Cornelis was his great-grandson, sculptor, architect and draftsman, who is thought to have designed the Antwerp Town Hall between 1561 and 1566. 

The Town Hall of Antwerp is a very large building, a monument of the new status of the city, and the first major Italianate building in the region. The overall composition of the building is symmetrical, with careful and elegant proportions to the facade. In its design, Cornelis has modeled the town hall on an Italian palazzo. It has a broad hipped roof, which avoids the stepped gables of the earlier Flemish style, and stresses the horizontal unity of the building. The central pavilion extends slightly from the plane of the wall, and is elaborated with five stories of classical columns and sculpture.  (more)

The Keldermans Family (Malines c. 1400- c. 1600)

This family of sculptors and architects from Malines were very renown in their days, and contributed to many splendid Gothic buildings in the Netherlands. (Look for a complete survey of the family.) The most famous include Andries (active 1455), who built the town hall of Middelburg and churches in Veere and Zierikzee, his grandson Rombout, probably the most famous, who designed the spire of Antwerp Cathedral (with Domien de Waghemakere, Antoon Keldermans II, and Rombout Keldermans between 1508-18) and the Ghent Town Hall (and builded the Gothic right side).

The spire of the Antwerp Cathedral

   The Town Hall of Ghent

| Pieter-Paul Rubens

This famous painter designed his own house in Antwerp during the years 1610-15. This large house served as both home and workshop. This house reflects the style of the Italian Renaissance that Rubens admired, incorporating classical arches, rustication, and sculpture. It was restored after 1937, and is now a public museum. (more) (more)

In 1635 he bought a country house near Elewijt, between Antwerp and Malines. This house is called Het Steen or the Rubenskasteel. This house is built in a traditional Flemish style, with steeply pitched roofs and stepped gables. It appears in paintings by Rubens, and is still a private home. 
(see the Painters' page)

The Ghent Opera House

   Louis Roelandt (Nieuwpoort 1786 - Ghent 1864)

He studied at the Academy of Ghent and at Paris. Still during the Dutch period he was appointed Town Architect, and builded some of Ghent's most important XIXth century buildings, including the University Aula (1820), a Casino  (1835, now demolished), the Hall of Justice (1836), the Opera House (1837). In his later years he experienced some bad luck, when adding a spire to the Beffrey (1851, had to be deconstructed) and starting the construction of the St. Ann's Church, where the foundations proved not adapted to the marshy ground. Also in other Belgian cities he desighed some impressive buildings.

His style was typical for the XIXth century: neo-classic, with neo-renaissance and baroque ornaments.

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Georges Minne (Ghent 1866 - St. Matens Latem 1941)

Sculptor and drawer. He studied at Ghent Academy. Friend of Maurice Maeterlinck, a great French speaking Flemish writer. Met Rodin in Paris. His masterwork is Kneeled at the Fountain (Original in  Essen Museum, Germany; famous copy in Ghent). He lived in St. Martens Latem from 1899 on, and joined the First Latem School (see Painters' section). He is also famous for his statue of Georges Rodenbach, another French speaking Flemish Writer.
 

  |  | Rik Wouters (also Henry, Malines 1882 - Amsterdam 1916)

He studied painting and sculpture at the Academies of Malines and Brussels. He met Nel, who became his primary model and wife. He had intensive contacts with artists including Jean Brusselmans, Edgard Tytgat, Paul Cézanne and James Ensor. He organized individual exhibitions in Brussels in 1913. During World War I his army unit had to flee to Holland, where they were taken prisoners of war, the Dutch keeping a strict neutrality. Because his suffering from face cancer, and thanks to the intervention of artist writer Emile Verhaeren, he was set free in 1915. Surgery couldn't prevent his painful death in 1916.

Although his career was brief he was very productive and renown in his days, and created some very impressive works including his "Joy of Life", dubbed "The mad Dancing Girl" ("Dulle Griet"), inspired on the legends of dancing Scyths. (Google)

See also the Painters' page.

  Philippe Wolfers (Brussels 1858-1929)

He is a polyvalent artist from Dutch-German origin. He worked in  Art Nouveau style. His family already started a Jewelry and Silver business at Brussels, that gained international fame, also for the production of royal Jewels.

Philippe was a very active artist, and organized exhibitions in Tervuren near Brussels (1897) and Paris (1925).

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   Victor Horta (Ghent 1861 - Brussels 1947)

After studying drawing, textiles and architecture at the Ghent Academy he worked in Paris. He returned to Belgium and worked for the classical architect Alphons Balat, before he started his own practice. 

Victor Horta created buildings which rejected historical styles and marked the beginning of modern architecture. He conceived modern architecture as an abstract principle derived from relations to the environment, rather than on the imitation of traditional styles. Although the organic forms of Art Nouveau architecture as established by Horta do not meet our standard ideas of modern architecture, Horta became the leading Belgian Art Nouveau architect, and generated ideas which became predecessors to the ideas of many a modernist in Europe. This Art Nouveau style has sometimes a different name in certain countries: Jugendstil in the German-speaking countries, Modern Style, Liberty Style in Britain, Estilo Modernista in Spain.

At 25, he built his first houses in Ghent. His Tassel Family House (1893), the Hotel Solvay (1895) and his private mansion (1898, now the Horta Museum) in Brussels use iron and stone facades on a larger scale, with still more complex iron interiors, while the Aubeck House (1900 in Brussels, now demolished) relied almost entirely on stone for its surging bays, balconies, and dormers. Horta also designed major public buildings in Brussels: the House of the People (1896, now demolished) for the Belgian Workers' Party, a building that ingeniously combined a number of functions on a small site; the department store "Innovation" (1901, destroyed by a fire in 1967 during which over 300 people were killed), with an open and decorative iron-and-glass facade, the Palace of Fine Arts (1922), an uncharacteristically ponderous attempt to strike a compromise between classical forms and Art Nouveau organicism, and in 1903 Les Magasins Waucquez (nowadays the Comic Strip Museum of Brussels).

Although many of Horta's buildings have been needlessly destroyed, his former assistant Jean Delhaye has worked to preserve what remains of his work. Delhaye has also secured the Horta residence as a permanent museum. (Famous Belgians) (Google)

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   Henry van de Velde (also Henri, Antwerp 1863 - Oberagen near Zürich, Switzerland 1957) 

The son of a wealthy chemist, he initially studied painting, but became also an architect and a decorator. Influenced by his admiration for Rusking, Morris and Voysey, he redirected his efforts as a designer. In 1895 he built his house in Ukkel (Brussels), which shows the influence of English architecture. Flowing and waving lines suggestive of plant motifs. Together with Victor Horta he laid the foundation of Art Nouveau in Belgium. He became known internationally with the creation of a number of interiors and furniture for Samuel Bing's gallery "L'art nouveau" in Paris (1896). He was the first among Art Nouveau artists to work in an abstract style. He played a leading role in the development of Jugendstil, the German equivalent of Art Nouveau. 

In 1901 Van de Velde was invited to Weimar as consultant to the craft industries of the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach. Five years later he became director and designer of the new Grand Ducal School of Arts and Crafts (Kunstgewerbeschule) which he based on Mackintosh's Glasgow School of Art. Van de Velde adhered to the Utopian idea that architects could reform society through design. He believed that 'Ugliness corrupts not only the eyes, but also the heart and mind'.

After World War I he became a professor at the university of Ghent (1926-1936), where he also designed the library. He was also in charge of the Institute for Architecture and Design at the abbey of Notre Dame de la Cambre in Elsene (Brussels, 1926-1935). The museum Kröller-Müller at Otterloo (Holland) is another of his famous buildings.

Borrowing from his own Flemish background and the English Arts & Crafts movement, Van de Velde developed a highly detailed style. Using concrete as an expressive element, he created ornamental designs and ornate interiors which directly influenced the Art Nouveau movement. He is generally considered as one of the founders of what was to become the Bauhaus of Walter Gropius.

Van de Velde left Germany for Switzerland when World War II broke out. (more) (more) (quotes) (more)

   Paul van Hoeydonck (Antwerp, b. 1925)

He created the first and up to now only art piece on the moon, aluminium, 8.5 cm long. During the Apollo-15 flight it was left on the moon by astronauts Dave Scott en Jim Irwin who called it ìFallen Astronautî. Next to the artwork there is a plaque commemorating the fourteen astro/cosmonauts who have died during the first ten years of human exploration of space. (Google)

Posted on 11 July 2002, on the 700th anniversary of the Batlle of the Golden Spurs, the symbolic Independence Day of Flanders. Rev. 31 August 2002.