Eugène Smits
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Eugène Smits (22 May 1826,
Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...
- 4 December 1912,
Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
) was a Belgian portrait painter.


Life and work

He studied at the
Académie royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles The Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium (RASAB) is a non-governmental association that promotes and organises science and the arts in Belgium by coordinating the national and international activities of its constituent academies su ...
with
François-Joseph Navez François-Joseph Navez (16 November 1787 in Charleroi – 12 October 1869 in Brussels) was a Belgian Neoclassicism, Neoclassical painter; known for his portraits and Genre art, genre scenes. Biography As the son of an alderman, in a privileged f ...
. From 1851 to 1852, he lived in Paris, where he made the professional acquaintance of
Jean-François Millet Jean-François Millet (; 4 October 1814 – 20 January 1875) was a French artist and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his paintings of peasant farmers and can be categorized as part of the Realis ...
,
Eugène Isabey Eugène Louis Gabriel Isabey (; 22 July 1803 – 25 April 1886) was a French painter, lithographer and watercolorist in the Romantic style. Biography He was born to Jean-Baptiste Isabey, a well known painter who enjoyed the patronage of ...
, and the brothers
Joseph Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew (). "Joseph" is used, along with " Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic count ...
and Alfred Stevens. He returned to Paris in 1855, to take part in the Exposition Universelle. From 1861 to 1864, he lived in Italy, where he created his largest canvas: "Ein Sonntagsnachmittag in Pincio" (A Sunday Afternoon in
Pincio The Pincian Hill ( ; ) is a hill in the northeast quadrant of the historical centre of Rome. The hill lies to the north of the Quirinal, overlooking the Campus Martius. It was outside the original boundaries of the ancient city of Rome, and wa ...
, 1862). In 1868, 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 ...
. In 1902, he was elected a member of his alma mater, the Académie royale. He also wrote a collection of memories and reflections, ''Les pensées d’Eugène Smits'', which was published posthumously in 1913, with illustrations by
Fernand Khnopff Fernand Edmond Jean Marie Khnopff (12 September 1858 – 12 November 1921) was a Belgian symbolist painter. Life Youth and training Fernand Khnopff was born to a wealthy family that was part of the high bourgeoisie for generations. Khnopf ...
.


Sources

* "Smits, Eugène", In: Hans Vollmer (Ed.): ''Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart'', Vol.31: Siemering–Stephens. E. A. Seemann, Leipzig 1937. * Smits, Eugène in: ''Dictionnaire des peintres belges'
(Online)
* Paul Lambotte: ''Eugène Smits, artiste-peintre (1826–1912)''. Forgotten Books 2019 (reprint), .


External links


''Les pensées d’Eugène Smits''
@ the
Hathi Trust HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries. Its holdings include content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digit ...
(full text)
More works by Smits
@ ArtNet 1826 births 1912 deaths Belgian painters Belgian portrait painters Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Brussels alumni Painters from Antwerp {{Belgium-painter-stub