From realism to surrealism
Jakob Smits is much more than a painter of traditional landscapes. Using elements he found in his surroundings, he depicted the world as no one had ever seen it before. Smits thus invited generations of artists to look at existence in a different way. In the exhibition
Jong Landschap, the Jakob Smits Museum and Dynamiek! show how modern artists such as Paul van Ostaijen, Jules Schmalzigaug and Floris Jespers came to know and appreciate Smits’ fragmented landscapes. And how they then took a step further on the path to futurism, expressionism and surrealism.
Van Ostaijen, art critic
When Paul van Ostaijen visited the exhibition of the Antwerp association Kunst van Heden (Art of Today) in the spring of 1914 in his still fledgling role as an art critic, he encountered more than a hundred paintings by Jakob Smits. He immediately recognised the craftsmanship of the Master of Achterbos. Van Ostaijen called Smits “the strongest, if not the only Flemish classic”. But something had crept into Smits’ later work that Van Ostaijen could not immediately put his finger on. Smits had not found “resignation” in the “beauty” he created. His images took on something strange. But why? That question never left Van Ostaijen. At the end of his short life, as a gallery owner, he dedicated an exhibition to Smits, focusing precisely on that later work.
Bruegel
Jong Landschap places the work of Jakob Smits in the quintessentially modernist quest for a different reality. Precisely because Smits was the acclaimed painter of traditional Flemish life, restless seekers such as Van Ostaijen, Schmalzigaug, Jespers, Léonard and others noticed that Smits was gradually beginning to desire something different from art.
The painter who so eagerly modelled himself on Rembrandt began to view existence more and more like Pieter Bruegel – the painter of human frailty. The longer Smits looked at his beloved Kempen vistas, the more he distorted that landscape, as it were, and bent it to his will.
In this new exhibition, visitors follow the fascinating dialogue between the contrarian traditionalist Jakob Smits and the dynamic ideas about modern art that took shape in Flanders under the pen of poet and art theorist Paul van Ostaijen. Young Landscape tells the story of an art tradition that begins with Pieter Bruegel, reaches a second peak with James Ensor, is thoroughly shaken up by the devastating First World War and ultimately culminates in the fantastic universe of surrealism.
Masterpieces and poetry
Young Landscape brings together surprising works from both private collections and the collections of renowned museums. In addition to etchings and drawings by Pieter Bruegel and James Ensor, Heinrich Campendonk’s masterpiece Landscape with Nudes (1921) attracts attention.
During Van Ostaijen’s stay in Germany, Campendonk became one of his best friends. He dedicated two “rural poems” to the German painter and together they reflected on the essence of modern art. In their view, modern art should primarily concern itself with the incongruities and elusiveness of existence. The ideas that emerged in this way had a major influence on painters such as Floris Jespers, Prosper De Troyer and Hubert Wolfs.
With works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, James Ensor, Jakob Smits, Eugeen Van Mieghem, Jules Schmalzigaug, Heinrich Campendonk, Paul van Ostaijen, Jos Léonard, Ferdinand Schirren, Jean Brusselmans, Edith Van Leckwyck, Hubert Wolfs, Alex Lallemand, Pere Creixams, Walter Vaes, Walter Gramatté and Gaston Burssens, among others.
The exhibition is a collaborative project between the Friends of the Jakob Smits Museum, the Municipality of Mol, the Ronald Luyten/Jakob Smits Foundation, Stuifzand and Dynamiek!
