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Lot Essay
Taking inspiration from the monumental architecture of his native Ostend, Léon Spilliaert recreated spatial entities that transcended their reference to reality. From 1907 onward, his solitary wanderings, day and night, led him through the massive arched openings in the sea wall, his scrutinising gaze circling the tightly packed, rounded structure of the Kursaal, and subjecting him to the sweeping force of the streets rising toward the sea wall. But most often, he grappled with the endless perspective of the colonnade that marked the beginning and end of his walks. This classical architecture, with its slender columns, erected under the direction of the great builder, King Leopold II, presented itself as a renewed source of inspiration and motivated Spilliaert to redefine himself in a highly personal art that could have led him toward geometric abstraction. Just as Mondrian found the sources of his geometry in the structures of breakwaters and towers, Spilliaert refined his forms in contact with this rigid and cold construction, in stark contrast to the turbulent swell of the sea against which it faced. He refined his forms, narrowed his field of vision, and focused on the diagonal, which became his guiding line. The subject of his compositions tended to disappear in favour of a geometry of rectilinear lines, where even the curve and counter-curve of clouds, natural forms of vast spaces, would vanish.
The Flemish writer and art critic, Karel Van de Woestyne, his contemporary, in a 1927 study, observed but did not fully appreciate this evolution: ‘At first, Spilliaert’s line was abrupt; his drawing gave the impression of being geometric; his aspiration towards an uninterrupted horizontal or vertical rigidity lent his work a semblance of severe solidity, which one sensed could nevertheless contain a considerable amount of anxiety, but which in itself had the satisfaction of being mastered. The drawing, while retaining its geometric qualities – Spilliaert has, one might say, a need for pure, stripped-down, algebraic perspective – has become more supple with time. Thus, one should not seek the value of Léon Spilliaert's meaning in the external appearance of his work (which would be the most natural) but rather in the content that this appearance represents consciously or unconsciously’ (‘Léon Spilliaert. Kunst te Brussel’ in Elsevier’s geïllustreerd maandschrift, vol. LXXIII, no. 6, June 1927, p. 457).
The various representations of the Galeries royales of Ostend respond to this very free reinterpretation of reality and this need for geometric reduction. The volume of the building becomes merely a pretext for an illusion of anchoring in space. By examining and analysing the importance that Spilliaert, in his successive compositions from 1907 to 1909, gives to the surface of the building, a different approach emerges. In Galeries royales d’Ostende et plage, après l’orage (1907) – recently offered for sale at Christie’s Paris – the gallery is relegated to a dark row over one-sixth of the sheet’s surface. Its presence is all the more diminished when contrasted with the luminous sky above the beach. In Les Galeries royales d’Ostende, held by the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium and dated 1908, the building occupies slightly more than half the sheet, and the architectural elements are more detailed, revealing the interior space of the row of columns. In another version from the same year, held in a private collection in France, Spilliaert shifts the perspective, and the columns rise vertically. They gain in architectural majesty and, through the rhythmically detailed design of their dentils and bases, evoke the traits of a classical temple. It is worth noting that the viewpoint from which the galleries along the beach are viewed in all three versions is the same: the view from the seawall near the Chalet royal towards the Royal Palace Hôtel, whose silhouette can be discerned in the background. Another observation concerns the perception of the beach’s extent, which is successively a dark, truncated triangular area or a light one, but always seen under a cloudy sky.
In the present work, Galeries royales d’Ostende et kiosque, Spilliaert allows himself a simplification of both the linear representation and the atmosphere. A profound silence settles in, and a sense of timelessness seems to haunt this new interpretation of the gallery. The artist has moved towards the far end of the building, his gaze directed toward the sea channel opposite the port. This two-part depiction is quite strange, yet all the more original. Three columns appear in the foreground, followed by a more recessed row of columns that, in reality, does not exist. No decorative elements are repeated this time, but a small building at the edge of the seawall catches the eye—a small kiosk that did indeed stand along the seawall near the Chalet royal, visible on postcards of the period. The balance in the use of tones of tempered or accentuated Chinese ink wash is perfect, right down to the discreet accent of touches of blue coloured pencil to evoke the sea joining the sky.
Well ahead of his time, some of Spilliaert’s formal innovations would be further developed by others, often within a theoretical framework. None of his works, however, indicates, in their structural elaboration, the systematic application of a predetermined model. Simplification and synthesis are the foundation of his artistic language. His unwavering visionary eye would evolve throughout his career, unfailingly leading him to the essence of his transparent expressions of truth and originality, making him the quintessential example of an artist governed primarily by a timeless spirit.
Dr. Anne Adriaens-Pannier
The Flemish writer and art critic, Karel Van de Woestyne, his contemporary, in a 1927 study, observed but did not fully appreciate this evolution: ‘At first, Spilliaert’s line was abrupt; his drawing gave the impression of being geometric; his aspiration towards an uninterrupted horizontal or vertical rigidity lent his work a semblance of severe solidity, which one sensed could nevertheless contain a considerable amount of anxiety, but which in itself had the satisfaction of being mastered. The drawing, while retaining its geometric qualities – Spilliaert has, one might say, a need for pure, stripped-down, algebraic perspective – has become more supple with time. Thus, one should not seek the value of Léon Spilliaert's meaning in the external appearance of his work (which would be the most natural) but rather in the content that this appearance represents consciously or unconsciously’ (‘Léon Spilliaert. Kunst te Brussel’ in Elsevier’s geïllustreerd maandschrift, vol. LXXIII, no. 6, June 1927, p. 457).
The various representations of the Galeries royales of Ostend respond to this very free reinterpretation of reality and this need for geometric reduction. The volume of the building becomes merely a pretext for an illusion of anchoring in space. By examining and analysing the importance that Spilliaert, in his successive compositions from 1907 to 1909, gives to the surface of the building, a different approach emerges. In Galeries royales d’Ostende et plage, après l’orage (1907) – recently offered for sale at Christie’s Paris – the gallery is relegated to a dark row over one-sixth of the sheet’s surface. Its presence is all the more diminished when contrasted with the luminous sky above the beach. In Les Galeries royales d’Ostende, held by the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium and dated 1908, the building occupies slightly more than half the sheet, and the architectural elements are more detailed, revealing the interior space of the row of columns. In another version from the same year, held in a private collection in France, Spilliaert shifts the perspective, and the columns rise vertically. They gain in architectural majesty and, through the rhythmically detailed design of their dentils and bases, evoke the traits of a classical temple. It is worth noting that the viewpoint from which the galleries along the beach are viewed in all three versions is the same: the view from the seawall near the Chalet royal towards the Royal Palace Hôtel, whose silhouette can be discerned in the background. Another observation concerns the perception of the beach’s extent, which is successively a dark, truncated triangular area or a light one, but always seen under a cloudy sky.
In the present work, Galeries royales d’Ostende et kiosque, Spilliaert allows himself a simplification of both the linear representation and the atmosphere. A profound silence settles in, and a sense of timelessness seems to haunt this new interpretation of the gallery. The artist has moved towards the far end of the building, his gaze directed toward the sea channel opposite the port. This two-part depiction is quite strange, yet all the more original. Three columns appear in the foreground, followed by a more recessed row of columns that, in reality, does not exist. No decorative elements are repeated this time, but a small building at the edge of the seawall catches the eye—a small kiosk that did indeed stand along the seawall near the Chalet royal, visible on postcards of the period. The balance in the use of tones of tempered or accentuated Chinese ink wash is perfect, right down to the discreet accent of touches of blue coloured pencil to evoke the sea joining the sky.
Well ahead of his time, some of Spilliaert’s formal innovations would be further developed by others, often within a theoretical framework. None of his works, however, indicates, in their structural elaboration, the systematic application of a predetermined model. Simplification and synthesis are the foundation of his artistic language. His unwavering visionary eye would evolve throughout his career, unfailingly leading him to the essence of his transparent expressions of truth and originality, making him the quintessential example of an artist governed primarily by a timeless spirit.
Dr. Anne Adriaens-Pannier