Guillaume Van Strydonck (10 December 1861,

Namsos ( sma, Nåavmesjenjaelmie) is a municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Namdalen region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Namsos. Some of the villages in the municipality include Bangsund, Kl ...

– 2 July 1937, Saint-Gilles) was a Belgian painter. He was initially a realist, but later turned to

impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...

Life and work

Van Strydonck was born in Norway, where his father was employed by a Belgian company, but left there at an early age. When he was twelve, he began taking drawing lessons from Edouard Agneessens. Beginning in 1876, he enrolled at the

Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts The Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels (french: Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts - École supérieure des Arts de la Ville de Bruxelles (ARBA-ESA), nl, Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten van Brussel), is an art school established in Br ...

, where he studied under

Jean-François Portaels Jean-François Portaels or Jan Portaels (3 April 1818 – 8 February 1895) was a Belgian painter of genre scenes, biblical stories, landscapes, portraits and orientalist subjects. He was also a teacher and director of the Academy of Fine Arts ...

. Later, he studied with

Jean-Léon Gérôme Jean-Léon Gérôme (11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as academicism. His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was "arguably the world's most famous living artist by 1880." The ran ...

at the

École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts The Beaux-Arts de Paris is a French ''grande école'' whose primary mission is to provide high-level arts education and training. This is classical and historical School of Fine Arts in France. The art school, which is part of the Paris Science ...

in Paris.The Strand Magazine, Vol.32
@ Google Books In 1883, he became one of the founding members of the

secessionist Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the former Soviet republics lea ...

group ''

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 ...

''. At this time his painting style began to rely more on color and the use of light to express fleeting moods and he is considered to be one of the creators of a style that came to be called luminism. In 1884, he was awarded the

Prix Godecharle The Godecharle prize or the Godecharle contest is a contest for art students, the winners of which are granted a scholarship allocated by the Godecharle Foundation. The conditions for participation are that contestants are less than 35 years old, of ...

. He was very fond of travelling. In 1886, he took a trip to

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

and lived in India from 1891 to 1896. On his return to Belgium, he settled in

Weert Weert (; li, Wieërt ) is a municipality and city in the southeastern Netherlands located in the western part of the province of Limburg. It lies on the Eindhoven–Maastricht railway line, and is also astride the Zuid-Willemsvaart canal. Popu ...

, on the

Schelde River The Scheldt (french: Escaut ; nl, Schelde ) is a river that flows through northern France, western Belgium, and the southwestern part of the Netherlands, with its mouth at the North Sea. Its name is derived from an adjective corresponding to ...

, making the Belgian countryside his main theme. He was a lecturer at the Royal Academy from 1900 to 1931.

Selected paintings

File:Le vieux jardinier (Guillaume Van Strydonck).jpg, The Old Gardener File:Nap-Strydonck.jpg, The Nap File:Twilight by G. van Strydonck (cropped).jpg, Twilight (After Tennis) File:Strydonck-portret van een jonge vrouw met spiegel.jpg, Portrait of Young Woman with Mirror File:Guillaume van strydonck rivers edge.jpg, The River's Edge

References

External links

Arcadja Auctions: More paintings by Van Strydonck
Art Memoires (May 2002) {{DEFAULTSORT:Van Strydonck, Guillaume Impressionism 1861 births 1937 deaths 19th-century Belgian painters Belgian male painters 19th-century Belgian male artists 20th-century Belgian painters 20th-century Belgian male artists

Life and work

Selected paintings

Further reading

References

External links