30. Epilogue
Even after 1930, Belgian painters were still fascinated by objects in their everyday surroundings and continued on the highly personal path they had embarked on with modernism. In all their diversity, there is a common denominator. The artists modify the traditional setting and theatrical space, flattening it or even omitting it.
Marthe Donas used the characteristic broken mirror effect in what she called her first cubist still life. The space is literally broken into pieces and is set in motion by the sharp-edged planes.
We previously saw an early work by Gust De Smet featuring an Eastern figurine. Together with Constant Permeke and Frits Van den Berghe, De Smet was one of the most important Flemish expressionists. In his later still life featuring a fruit bowl, the change in style is obvious. De Smet makes the object and the line motif, the three-dimensional box and the flat plane interchangeable.
Jean Brusselmans, a good friend of Rik Wouters, created pictograms of the objects around him. The largest of his works in this room is called Still Life with Fan, but the painting depicts lots of objects as well as the fan. Brusselmans actually broke through the space: the table top and the wall form a single plane. He added the woman in the top left later: it is the American actress Linda Darnell who was very popular at the time.
We end with René Magritte. He questioned the status of word and image, playing with the things he saw. Is the shoe transforming into a foot, or vice versa? And a rose? You usually see them in the garden or in a vase, but what is a rose in the universe?
This rose also completes the exhibition Rose, rose, rose à mes yeux .
Do you want to start painting still life? If so, be sure to visit the balcony floor 1A, where you will find a Wunderkammer and enjoy a view of the exhibition.
This audio guide was created thanks to the Vrienden van Mu.ZEE, supported by players of the Belgian National Lottery.