Société Libre des Beaux-Arts
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About Société Libre des Beaux-Arts
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Société Libre des Beaux-Arts
Belgian avant-garde exhibition society, c. 1868–c. 1876. Heir to the earlier tradition of art clubs and free studios in Belgium, such as the Académie de Saint-Luc (c. 1846–63) and Jean-François Portaels’s free studio in Brussels (c. 1858), it provided an alternative exhibition site to the official Salon. The original organizing committee of 16 members is shown in a group portrait of 1874–5 by Edmond Lambrich (1830–87; Brussels, Mus. Ixelles). It included Louis Artan de Saint-Martin
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Grove Art excerpts - Electronic ©2003, Oxford Art Online
Société Libre des Beaux-Arts
Belgian avant-garde exhibition society, c. 1868–c. 1876. Heir to the earlier tradition of art clubs and free studios in Belgium, such as the Académie de Saint-Luc (c. 1846–63) and Jean-François Portaels’s free studio in Brussels (c. 1858), it provided an alternative exhibition site to the official Salon. The original organizing committee of 16 members is shown in a group portrait of 1874–5 by Edmond Lambrich (1830–87; Brussels, Mus. Ixelles). It included Louis Artan de Saint-Martin (1837–90) and Charles De Groux, both members of Saint-Luc; Alfred Jacques Verwée, Félicien Rops, Louis Dubois and Constantin Meunier, all of whom remained active in avant-garde organizations throughout the century. Their manifesto, published on 31 January 1869, proposed the Realist goal of ‘free and individual interpretation of nature’, as well as the more avant-garde concepts of ‘struggle, change, freedom, progress, originality and tolerance’. The manifesto’s author, the Society’s secretary Camille Van Camp (1834–91), edited their bi-monthly review, Art libre, which voiced a desire for openness and change in the face of conservative dogmatism: 22 issues were published between December 1871 and December 1872. The society held four exhibitions (December 1868, March, May and August 1872) that showed their admiration for the work of Courbet and the Barbizon artists. In 1868 Courbet, Corot, Charles-François Daubigny, Théodore Rousseau and Jean-François Millet were asked to join, setting an example of internationalism that would be followed later, most notably by Les XX. They were strongly supported by the critics Camille Lemonnier (1844–1913), who urged them to ‘be of their own time’, and Théo Hannon (1851–1916), who saw their work as sincere and direct, rebelling against artificial formulae. Official critics were very hostile to them at first; gradually this hostility diminished until by 1875 the official Salon found Realism acceptable, thus coopting the group’s aims and contributing to its demise. The Society provided a model for subsequent avant-garde art groups in Belgium.
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Grove Art excerpts - Electronic ©2003, Oxford Art Online
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