Emile Claus
After his education at the Academy of Antwerp, Emile Claus practiced a conventional, socially inspired realism for about ten years. Starting in 1883, he established his studio in the village of Astene near Ghent, where he also went to live in the course of the years. The views of Claude Monet and his associates, whose oeuvre Claus had seen in Paris, and his own predilection for painting in the open air led him around 1890 to a style in which Realism and Impressionism were combined. In 1904, he and a few like-minded people founded the association Vie et Lumière. Because the members mainly focused on the depiction of light effects, they were given the name luminists by art critics. This movement was the last major metamorphosis of Impressionism in Belgium. During the First World War, Emile Claus fled to London, where he painted numerous views of the Thames. Like William Turner and Claude Monet (but less far-reaching in the dissolution of forms and also less refined), he paid particular attention to the refraction of light in the damp atmosphere and fog of London.
We present today's work thanks to The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.
P.S. Check the excellent collection of The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium with our highlights. <3
P.P.S. Impressionism was super important for the artists at the beginning of the 20th Century. You can learn more about this phenomenon from our Mega Impressionism Course.