Léon Spilliaert

Spilliaert’s distinctive and highly enigmatic compositions reveal the influence of symbolism, such as the works of French artist Odilon Redon (1840–1916), combined with elements of expressionism and surrealism. His career is often considered in tandem with that of his contemporary, the Belgian painter James Ensor (1860–1949), who, like the younger artist, was born and lived much of his life in the seaside city of Ostend, Belgium. Like Ensor, Spilliaert has been highly influential to subsequent generations of artists—most notably Luc Tuymans (b. 1958)—who have observed the universal qualities in Spilliaert’s depictions of the human condition.

Often featuring solitary figures in dreamlike spaces or nocturnal coastal landscapes, Spilliaert’s compositions convey a sense of melancholy and stillness and embody an affect influenced by the artist’s life in Ostend, which is known for its long beachside promenade and prominent abutting architecture. Many figurative and landscape scenes in the exhibition are distinguished by his signature dark palette and the simplification—occasionally to the point of abstraction—of architectural forms.

Spilliaert was plagued by periods of ill health throughout most of his life, resulting in bouts of insomnia and nightwalking that came to be read in the physical and psychological darkness of his artwork. He began his career as an illustrator for bookseller Edmond Deman (1857–1918), who published nineteenth-century symbolist writers including Stephane Mallarmé and translations of Edgar Allan Poe, before initiating his own artistic practice.

Included here are two of the artist’s notable and brooding self-portraits, with the earliest dating to 1902, the first year he is known to have depicted himself. Other compositions showcase Spilliaert’s depictions of women which, especially in works from 1907 to 1910, are defined by a sense of existential isolation that parallels the desolate solemnity of his landscapes.

The melancholic, androgynous figures in Dame au pince-nez (Lady with Lorgnette) and Dame au canapé (Lady on a Sofa), both 1907, demonstrate the modernity of Spilliaert’s female portraiture; other depictions range from scenes of domestic interiority, such as La couture (Needlework), 1917, to more vibrant portrayals of youth and society life as seen in Fillette en blanc (Girl in White), 1912.

“In 1916,” Francine Legrand writes, “Spilliaert married. In November of 1917, his wife, Rachel, gave birth to their only child, a daughter, Madeleine. Spilliaert became a different man…. [He] looked at the world with rapture and saw it in a fresh, new way…. He watched his wife Rachel sewing, and painted several works entitled Needlework, revealing an intimacy of the best sort.”

Trees are a recurring subject throughout Spilliaert’s oeuvre, appearing either alone or grouped, like a cast of characters. As Goldman and Adriaens-Pannier note, “The subject of trees winds a long thread through Spilliaert’s work, subtly accompanying all his psychological upheavals…. The tree was always there to interpret his wavering spirit.”

Serres chaudes I (Hothouses I), 1917, anticipates Spilliaert’s important portfolio of lithographs, Les serres chaudes (Hothouses), made in 1918, which were inspired by the poems of Belgian symbolist Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949) and reflect the artist’s personal, often enigmatic interpretation of the now-iconic texts.