Emile Claus founded in 1904 together with Adriaan Josef Heymanns and other artists, the group Vie et Lumiere. His overidding concern was to fill his paintings with as much light as possible. It was a movement that he had been working towards all his life and whose principal impetus came from the French Impressionists. Claus had exhibited with the avant-garde movements of Octave Maus, Les XX, and Libres Esthetique, but by founding Vie et Lumiere, in 1904 he wanted to channel his ideas with greater purpose.

In 1889 Claus had acquired an old hunting lodge on the banks of the river Lys which he called Zonneschijn (sunshine), and it was here that he spent most of his working life. The valley of the Lys and the surrounding landscape provided the subject matter and inspiration for many of his greatest pictures