Camille van Camp (3 June 1834,

Tongeren Tongeren (; french: Tongres ; german: Tongern ; li, Tóngere ) is a city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Limburg, in the southeastern corner of the Flemish region of Belgium. Tongeren is the oldest town in Belgium, as the onl ...

- 16 November 1891,

Montreux Montreux (, , ; frp, Montrolx) is a Swiss municipality and town on the shoreline of Lake Geneva at the foot of the Alps. It belongs to the district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland, and has a population of approxima ...

) was a Belgian portrait and landscape painter,

watercolorist Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

, and engraver.

Life and work

His father was a lawyer; originally from Antwerp. From 1848 to 1853, he studied at the Académie royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles with

François-Joseph Navez François-Joseph Navez (16 November 1787 – 12 October 1869) was a Belgian neo-classical painter. Biography Navez was born in Charleroi. He was a pupil of Jacques-Louis David. He spent five years in Italy between 1817 and 1822. Between 1835 ...

Louis Gallait Louis Gallait (9 or 10 May 1810 – 20 November 1887) was a Belgian painter. He lay at the basis of a revival of history painting in Belgium. He earned his reputation especially with the large painting of Charles V's abdication. Gallait's works w ...

and . He paid a visit to

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

in 1857, where he copied the Old Masters at the

Uffizi The Uffizi Gallery (; it, Galleria degli Uffizi, italic=no, ) is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums ...

. Two years later, he did the same thing at the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

in Paris. In 1863, he and his friend,

Hippolyte Boulenger Hippolyte Emmanuel Boulenger (3 December 1837 – 4 July 1874) was a Belgian landscape painter influenced by the French Barbizon school, considered to be "the Belgian Corot". Biography Hippolyte Boulenger was born to French parents in Tournai ...

, went to

Tervuren Tervuren () is a municipality in the province of Flemish Brabant, in Flanders, Belgium. The municipality comprises the villages of Duisburg, Tervuren, Vossem and Moorsel. On January 1, 2006, Tervuren had a total population of 20,636. The total a ...

, the site of a flourishing artists' colony. There, he participated in creating a style of landscape painting that came to be known as the . Five years later, he was one of the co-founders of the

Société Libre des Beaux-Arts The Société Libre des Beaux-Arts ("Free Society of Fine Arts") was an organization formed in 1868 by Belgian artists to react against academicism and to advance Realist painting and artistic freedom. Based in Brussels, the society was active un ...

. He also published criticism in ''L’Art libre'', a French fine arts journal, and was a correspondent for the ''

Illustrated London News ''The Illustrated London News'' appeared first on Saturday 14 May 1842, as the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine. Founded by Herbert Ingram, it appeared weekly until 1971, then less frequently thereafter, and ceased publication i ...

''. He was one of the illustrators for the first edition of '' The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel'', by Charles De Coster. Unfortunately, it was poorly printed and full of typographical errors. Corrections were made for a second edition in 1869, but the work gained little attention until the 1920s, when new illustrations were created. He died while taking the cure at a spa in Switzerland.

Sources

* "Camp, Camille J. B. van", In: Ulrich Thieme (Ed.): ''Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart'', Vol.5: Brewer–Carlingen. E. A. Seemann, Leipzig 1911, pg.445
Online
* "Van Camp, Camille" in: ''Dictionnaire des peintres belges'
(Online)
* Simone Speth-Holterhoff, ''Camille Van Camp, 1834-1891'', preface by Paul Fierens, Brussels, La Renaissance du Livre, 1952

External links

More works by Van Camp
@ ArtNet {{DEFAULTSORT:Camp, Camille van 1834 births 1891 deaths Belgian painters Belgian portrait painters Belgian watercolourists Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts alumni People from Tongeren