Piet Verhaert ( Antwerp, 25 February 1852 –

Oostduinkerke Oostduinkerke (; french: Ostdunkerque ; vls, Ôostduunkerke) is a place in the Belgian province of West Flanders, where it is located on the southern west coast of Belgium. Once a municipality of its own, Oostduinkerke now is a sub-municipali ...

, 4 August 1908) was a Belgian painter. He was a member of

Les XX ''Les XX'' ( French; "''Les Vingt''"; ; ) was a group of twenty Belgian painters, designers and sculptors, formed in 1883 by the Brussels lawyer, publisher, and entrepreneur Octave Maus. For ten years, they held an annual exhibition of their art ...

Life and career

Verhaert was a painter and

etcher Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

townscapes In the visual arts, a cityscape (urban landscape) is an artistic representation, such as a painting, drawing, print or photograph, of the physical aspects of a city or urban area. It is the urban equivalent of a landscape. ''Townscape'' ...

, interiors, figures and portraits. He was also a notable painter of decorative panels. Trained at the

Academy of Antwerp The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp ( nl, Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten van Antwerpen) is an art academy located in Antwerp, Belgium. It is one of the oldest of its kind in Europe. It was founded in 1663 by David Teniers the Young ...

, he originally studied sculpting but switched to painting. He was part of a group of young artists known as the "Van Beers Clique", led by Jan van Beers. This group included the artists

Alexander Struys Alexander Theodore Honoré Struys (24 January 1852, Berchem – 25 March 1941, Uccle) was a Belgian genre and portrait painter in the Realistic style. Biography Struys' father (originally from Holland) was a master glass painter. At the age of s ...

and

Jef Lambeaux Jef Lambeaux or Josef Lambeaux (14 January 18525 June 1908) was a Belgian sculptor. His best known work is '' Temple of Human Passions'', a colossal marble bas-relief. Early life and education Lambeaux was born in Antwerp, Belgium, on 14 Janua ...

. They were well known for their mischievous and eccentric behaviour, which included walking around Antwerp dressed in historic costumes. He travelled to The Netherlands, Italy and later Spain. He debuted in 1873 at the Triannual Salon van Antwerpen. He stayed for a year in Paris in 1876. During his time in Spain (1882–83), he made copies from Velázquez. He was a member of Les XX ("The Twenty"), a founder of the Society Aquafortistes and a teacher at the Academy of Antwerp from 1886. He painted, predominantly,

genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other ...

scenes of the 17th and 18th centuries. From the beginning of the 1880s he painted his own designs, working in

plein-air ''En plein air'' (; French for 'outdoors'), or ''plein air'' painting, is the act of painting outdoors. This method contrasts with studio painting or academic rules that might create a predetermined look. The theory of 'En plein air' painting ...

style. Later, brown became the dominant colour of his work. He is best known for his depictions of the old street districts of Antwerp, was considered to be a powerful colourist and was a virtuoso with a pencil. He painted a fresco in the

Antwerp City Hall The City Hall ( Dutch: ) of Antwerp, Belgium, stands on the western side of Antwerp's Grote Markt ("Great Market Square"). Erected between 1561 and 1565 after designs made by Cornelis Floris de Vriendt and several other architects and artists, th ...

(1899) and made an album of etchings on the old districts of Antwerp. His works may be found in the museums of Antwerp,

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, Doornik and

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest i ...

Selected paintings

File:Verhaert-Forgeon.jpg,

Forger Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally refers to the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific mens rea, intent to wikt:defraud#English, defraud anyone (other than themself). Tampering with a certain ...

at Work File:Verhaert2.jpg,

Till Eulenspiegel Till Eulenspiegel (; nds, Dyl Ulenspegel ) is the protagonist of a German chapbook published in 1515 (a first edition of ca. 1510/12 is preserved fragmentarily) with a possible background in earlier Middle Low German folklore. Eulenspiegel is a ...

Singing File:Verhaert1.jpg, Courtyard at a Farm in

Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...

File:Verhaert-Another.jpg, Another!

References

External links

Odis Databank: Biography and curriculum vitaeArcadja Auctions: Works by VerhaertPiet Verhaert at the British Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Verhaert, Piet 1852 births 1908 deaths Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp) alumni Academic staff of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp) 19th-century Belgian painters 19th-century Belgian male artists