14. (still)life & death
Nature morte, the French term for a still life, refers to the lifeless things that play a key role in this genre. Nevertheless we already saw quite a few painters trying to bring their work to life. Isidore Verheyden achieves this here by placing a girl sipping a cup of tea at a table, on which a magnificent still life stands.
The small painting with Jeannie de Hemptinne's staircase also features an onlooker. Very little is known about De Hemptinne, except that she grew up in a wealthy family and died very young, at the age of 26. In another painting, she confronts life and death in the form of a dead bird and a fluttering butterfly. Her paintings were displayed, among others, at the salons of the Cercle des femmes peintres, an association of women artists where works by Anna Boch were also exhibited in around 1890. In her beautiful kitchen still life, the oblique perspective lines of the furniture as well as the watchful magpie afford the composition movement. Incidentally, Anna Boch once exhibited this painting under the title La Pie, the magpie, making it the work's undisputed protagonist. Death is also very palpable in the death mask of Antoine Wiertz that Frans Mortelmans captured in a watercolour. The piece shows the respect artists in Belgium held for the great Wiertz. As serene as this work is, as celebratory Hubert Bellis’s work is: or rather, there was a celebration. Here, a mask evokes the life and energy of a carnival party that is over.
The next part of the exhibition can be found in the Ensor Room. Leave the decorative still life through the doorway, and turn right, to the door marked with the number 3.