
Christophe Karel Henri (Karel) de Nerée tot Babberich (18 March 1880 – 19 October 1909) was a Dutch symbolist artist who worked in the
decadent
Decadence was a late-19th-century movement emphasizing the need for sensationalism, egocentricity, and bizarre, artificial, perverse, and exotic sensations and experiences. By extension, it may refer to a decline in art, literature, science, ...
and symbolist style of
Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley ( ; 21 August 187216 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced by Woodblock printing in Japan, Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. ...
and
Jan Toorop
Johannes Theodorus "Jan" Toorop[Jan Toorop]
Netherlands Institute for Art History, 2014. Retrieved on 18 February 201 ...
.
De Nerée was born in
Zevenaar
Zevenaar () is a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality and a city in the Gelderland province, in the eastern Netherlands near the border with Germany.
In January 2018 the neighbouring municipality of Rijnwaarden was merged with Zevenaar ...
(The Netherlands) on Huize Babberich, the son of Frederick de Nerée tot Babberich (1851–1882) and Constance van Houten (1858–1930).
De Nerée began drawing and writing in 1898. De Nerée's literary writings and art work were very much inspired by decadent and
symbolist
Symbolism or symbolist may refer to:
*Symbol, any object or sign that represents an idea
Arts
*Artistic symbol, an element of a literary, visual, or other work of art that represents an idea
** Color symbolism, the use of colors within various c ...
authors such as
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, translator and art critic. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhythm and rhyme, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics ...
,
Paul Verlaine
Paul-Marie Verlaine ( ; ; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolism (movement), Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the ''fin de siècle'' ...
or
Gabriele d'Annunzio, and artists such as
de Feure,
Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, an ...
,
Johan Thorn Prikker, and
Jan Toorop
Johannes Theodorus "Jan" Toorop[Jan Toorop]
Netherlands Institute for Art History, 2014. Retrieved on 18 February 201 ...
. Increasingly he focused on his art rather than poetry. Only posthumously, in 1916, were two of his poems published in a French periodical.
In 1901, De Nerée worked in Madrid as a representative for Foreign Affairs. He caught
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
, a disease that would determine the rest of his life. In Madrid, De Nerée was visited by his friend
Henri van Booven, the future biographer of
Louis Couperus
Louis Marie-Anne Couperus (10 June 1863 – 16 July 1923) was a Dutch novelist and poet. His oeuvre contains a wide variety of genres: lyric poetry, psychological fiction, psychological and historical fiction, historical novels, novellas, short ...
, who later gave a thinly veiled report of this visit in his novel ''Een liefde in Spanje'' ('A Love in Spain', 1928). De Nerée also inspired Van Booven to write his volume of (prose) poems ''Witte Nachten'' ('White Nights', 1901) and the novel ''Tropenwee'' ('Tropical Agony', 1904), the latter being a Conrad-like report of his traumatic visit to the Belgian Congo.
In his turn Van Booven gave De Nerée ''The Early Work'' (1899) by Aubrey Beardsley. This was obviously great influence on De Nerée's style of drawing. Later, around 1904-1905, he developed his own unique style. The themes, usually 'femmes fatales' or clownesque figures, gold nuances and symbolism of these works often recall associations with the best wor He is one of the few 'decadent' Dutch representatives
of the European
symbolist
Symbolism or symbolist may refer to:
*Symbol, any object or sign that represents an idea
Arts
*Artistic symbol, an element of a literary, visual, or other work of art that represents an idea
** Color symbolism, the use of colors within various c ...
movement.
During his life he did not exhibit; he was a well-known society figure. Sometimes he gave friends drawings and around 1905 he sold several works to collectors, mostly from Germany.
Due to his poor health, drawing and painting became ever more difficult after 1906-1907. The little known works from his later period are characterized by their colors and modernist compositions. He died on 19 October 1909 at 29 years of age, in the southern German town of Todtmoos. He was buried in Clarens, near Montreux.
The nature of his work, the Beardsley-imitation and the somewhat 'decadent' character, set de Nerée naturally in a somewhat isolated position in art history. During the twentieth century, however, his work was exhibited several times and he has received a well-deserved small but certain place in European art history around the turn of the twentieth century.
Works
A selection of his works:
*
Henri van Booven as a young priest (1900)
* Walden,
ot usedbook cover (1900)
* The beautiful image (1900)
* Introduction to ''
Ecstasy'' of Couperus (1900–01)
* Ecstasy, finals (1900–01)
* Self Portrait (1900–01)
* Illustration for ''
Le Jardin des Supplices'' (1899) by
Octave Mirbeau (1900)
* Love Game No. 1 (1900–01)
* Black Swans (1901)
* The Bride (1901)
* Two Women (1901)
* Salome (1901)
* Owl (1903)
* Clowning (1904)
* La Musique (1904)
* La rencontre (1904)
* Sortie (1904)
* Rococo (1904–05)
* Rôdeuse (1904–05)
* Portrait Study / selfportrait (1905)
* Study of a Sulamitic (1905)
* Le mauvais regard (1906)
File:Inleiding tot Extaze.jpg, ''Introduction to Extaze'' (1900–01)
File:Schoone beeld.jpg, ''The beautiful Image'' (1900)
File:CareldeNeree5.jpg, ''Salome'' (1901)
File:la musique 1904.jpg, ''La musique'' (1904)
Exhibitions
* The Hague, Kunstkring, 1910
* Amsterdam, Arti, 1910
* The Hague, d'Audretsch (with H. Daalhoff a.o.), 1914
* Haarlem, Du Bois, 1936
* Milan & München, Gallery Levante, 1970
* Laren, Singer Museum, 1974
* Kleve, Städtliches Museum, 1975
* The Hague, Staal Banker, 1982
* Arnhem, Gemeentemuseum, 1986
* Arnhem, Gemeentemuseum, 1998
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Neree Tot Babberich, Karel De
1880 births
1909 deaths
People from Zevenaar
Artists from Gelderland
20th-century Dutch painters
Dutch male painters
20th-century Dutch male artists