Groot heuvellandschap (Large, Rolling Landscape)

This oil on canvas made by the landscape artist Valerius De Saedeleer, has been acquired by the Isabelle and Philippe Dewez Fund, managed by the King Baudouin Foundation, for the Ixelles Museum. It enables the museum to provide a more complete panorama of the art of the Laethem-Saint-Martin School.

The Laethem-Saint-Martin School

Landscape artist Valerius De Saedeleer (1867-1941) was a member of the original nucleus of the first Laethem-Saint-Martin group (1890-1914). From the end of the 19th century, the Laethem-Saint-Martin School brought together a group of artists from several generations in and around the village of Laethem-Saint-Martin, situated on the River Lys, a few kilometres south of Ghent. The artists were fleeing the city and its social unrest and were attracted by the idea of a return to nature.

A typical view over the Flemish Ardennes

This work was painted around 1923-1924, when De Saedeleer was living in the village of Etikhove, not far from Laethem-Saint-Martin. The place chosen from which to create the landscape was none other than that of the artist’s house, the Villa Tynlon, located at the top of the hill in Bossenare, to the east of Etikhove. De Saedeleer re-created the same view during the 1920s, when he painted several works that synthesized and idealized the relief of this rolling, asymmetric valley, so typical of the Flemish Ardennes. Groot heuvellandschap is nevertheless somewhat atypical of the artist’s work in that it is not a winter landscape.

The influence of Bruegel

Greatly influenced by the meticulous and detailed art of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, here De Saedeleer offers us a vast, panoramic landscape, in which the sky, dark at the top and lighter towards the base, accounts - with great presence – for almost two-thirds of the composition. He often used this format, offering width rather than height, so that the landscape extended as far as the eye could see. In a seemingly timeless atmosphere, the expanse of rolling land is punctuated with haystacks, the occasional house and farm, and rows of trees that rigorously separate the painting’s various planes. The effects of shading, in the sky as well as on the grass, are employed to create perspective. For the onlooker, the darker shades indicate proximity, whilst the lighter shades of his palette express depth and distance.

The Isabelle and Philippe Dewez Fund

The Isabelle and Philippe Dewez Fund has as its mission to promote the accessibility of works of art and hand them down to future generations by making them available to public institutions. The Groot heuvellandschap painting by Valerius De Saedeleer was acquired for the Ixelles Museum, which now has not only its first work by the artist, but is also able to offer a more complete panorama of the art of the Laethem-Saint-Martin School.