Constant Permeke

EN Constant Permeke — 1 BezoekersgidsPermeke-E.indd 1 14/06/16 15:21 — Flemisch Orchard 1923 2 — BezoekersgidsPermeke-E.indd 2 14/06/16 15:21 — Flemish Expressionism Constant Permeke is considered to be the most important representative of Flemish Expressionism, although he himself never formally joined the Sélection group that had coined the term. He developed a unique style through which he aspired to express spontaneous feelings via distortions, colours and material. His art speaks of the everyday lives of simple folk in relation to nature. Permeke observed individuals in their surroundings, such as the fishermen of Ostend and the farmers in the areas of Ghent and Jabbeke; the people he lived alongside and to whom he felt a close connection. He particularly wanted to express the hardship of their lives, which were spent in poverty and affliction, and the cosmic connection between mankind and nature. Permeke moved several times: from Antwerp, to Ostend, Sint-Martens- Latem, back to Ostend and, finally, to Jabbeke. He lived through two world wars, and was not spared by fate – he lost two of his six children at a young age. The style and the subject matter of his works are very closely linked to the events that took place in the course of his life. — Early years Constant Permeke was born in Antwerp on 31 July 1886 and, six years later, moved to Ostend with his family. His father, Henri Louis Permeke, was a painter and restorer who became the first curator of the Museum of Fine Arts in Ostend. At twenty, Permeke enrolled at the Ghent Academy. He met many interesting people, including Frits Van den Berghe and Gust De Smet, with whom he forged lifelong friendships. During these years, when they all lived together in the Patershol in Ghent, Permeke was preoccupied with the work of Emile Claus, who was known as a ‘Luminist’ because he painted — 3 BezoekersgidsPermeke-E.indd 3 14/06/16 15:21 the effects of light using bright colours. Permeke settled on a similar style to Claus, but his focus was less on the superficial experience of light, and more upon internalization and the experience of nature. — Sint-Martens-Latem After the excitement of his student years, Permeke opted for the peace of Sint-Martens-Latem, a village near Ghent. Some of his friends followed in his footsteps, other artists had already established themselves in the area. Weighed down with easels and tubes of oil paint, the Latem artists ventured out into nature to paint the landscape. Permeke chose an expressive style, with broad, thickly smeared layers of paint, loose brushstrokes, monumental figures and few details. His palette was dark, with earthy shades of brown, ochre and black, and the occasional touches of fiery red or bright blue. He painted the harsh daily reality of the peasants, and did not believe that he could express this in bright, cheerful colours. — Great Britain At the outbreak of the First World War, Permeke was called up as a soldier. Seriously wounded during the defence of Antwerp, he was transferred to Folkestone in England, where he was reunited with his mother and heavily pregnant wife. With the help of the Red Cross, the family stayed in Stanton St Bernard, in Wiltshire, for over a year. Permeke made a series of small, almost abstract watercolours of his surroundings and the house in which they resided. A year later, the family moved to the more southern county of Devonshire, where Permeke found a house on top of a hill in Chardstock. Although he still walked on crutches, he began to paint large canvases again: impressive, semi-abstract works in which the landscape is central and 4 — BezoekersgidsPermeke-E.indd 4 14/06/16 15:21 bright sunlight dominates. The shapes and figures dissolve into a warm glow of yellow, gold, ochre and red, shades that recall the work of James Ensor and William Turner. But for Permeke, such explosions of colour tended to be exceptional. They attest to the happiness and zest for life that he and his family experienced during their years in England. Also notable in this landscape is the high horizon line. In the later views that Permeke painted in Jabbeke, it sits much lower. Gust De Smet and Frits Van den Berghe had fled to the Netherlands, where they came into contact with Cubism and German Expressionism. As Permeke was in England, he was far removed from these influences and able to develop his own expressive style. — Return to Ostend When he returned to Ostend after the war, Permeke devoted himself to drawing the city’s fishermen. The works are characterised by fine lines, are sometimes very detailed and occasionally feature a proverb as a title. In his paintings from that time, the figures are caught up in a tangle of angular lines and harsh colours, often a dramatic green. Perhaps this is an interpretation of the post-war disorder and disorientation that Permeke encountered upon his return? — African art That Permeke had a profound interest in African art is clearly visible in Peasant Family with Cat. The faces recall different types of masks and statues from Africa. Belgian artists’ interest in African art reached its pinnacle in the early 1920s. Permeke, De Smet and Van den Berghe all assembled personal collections of African art, and were fascinated by the shapes and structural — 5 BezoekersgidsPermeke-E.indd 5 14/06/16 15:21 6 — BezoekersgidsPermeke-E.indd 6 14/06/16 15:21 — About Permeke 1922 — 7 BezoekersgidsPermeke-E.indd 7 14/06/16 15:21 composition of the sculptures. Permeke copied this method of composition and abstraction in his paintings and drawings, and reduced certain elements to pure geometric shapes. He enlarged hands, feet and faces in order to express the harshness of rural life and the interconnectedness of the farmer and his land. The artist frequently combined the art of drawing and painting, alternating fine pencil lines with large expanses of colour. — The sea Permeke had a lifelong fascination with the sea. In the mid-1920s, he painted dozens of seascapes, which at first included a beach, dunes or a breakwater. These elements gradually disappeared, until the moving body of water filled the entire canvas. He considered the sea – sometimes calm, sometimes stormy – to be a mirror of the soul and a means by which to express his emotions. It was not an easy time. He lost his son Matthew at the age of two and a half, his mother also passed away, and his supposedly ‘stagnant’ art was roundly criticised. Longing for peace, he bought a boat, christened it ‘De Zeeuw’, and set sail upon the open sea, and through the canals and waterways in Flanders and the Netherlands. His journeys provided inspiration for numerous seascapes. — Jabbeke Constant Permeke regularly visited the countryside around Jabbeke in order to paint outdoors. In 1928, he decided to settle in the village permanently. He purchased a plot of land measuring almost two hectares and asked his friend Pierre Vandervoort, an architect from Nieuwpoort, to design a house based upon his rough sketches. The work began that same year. Permeke took up residence in the large mansion that he called ‘De Vier Winden’ [The Four Winds] at the end of 1929. 8 — BezoekersgidsPermeke-E.indd 8 14/06/16 15:21 — Weeding-woman 1931 — 9 BezoekersgidsPermeke-E.indd 9 14/06/16 15:21 — Back from the fields (tired farmer with wife) 1931 10 — BezoekersgidsPermeke-E.indd 10 14/06/16 15:21 He made numerous sketches in Jabbeke and the surrounding villages, which he later elaborated into large landscape paintings in his studio. He also drew larger-than-life figures in charcoal and pastels that were inspired by rural life, such as Farmer with Spade, The Beggar and The Sower. Permeke then pasted the drawings, which were made on huge sheets of paper, onto plywood. He had learned the technique of affixing paper onto wood or canvas, known as marouflage, from his father. The jagged paper edges and the structure of the wood were, in his mind, important elements within the artwork. He also enjoyed experimenting with the technique of drawing. Besides pencil, charcoal and pastels, he used heavily diluted paint (thinned with turpentine), which he smoothed over the charcoal with a broad brush. In so doing, he created light and shade and brought greater depth to the figure. He extended this technique by adding other pigments with more opaque qualities, such as chalk. Permeke often combined different styles in his work, and sought to alternate obviously finished sections with those that were more suggestive. — Sculpture It was the harsh criticism of his work in the press – it was judged to be overly traditional and frequently repetitive – that ultimately prompted Permeke to go in search of innovation. Thus was born his interest in sculpture. By then, he was fifty years old and knew nothing about sculpting. He began modelling small sculptures in clay, which were rather primitive in form and, with their emphasis on hips and breasts, also reminiscent of prehistoric fertility figurines. The small figures were either fired in terracotta or cast in plaster. His first major sculpture was a prostrate figure of Christ. He made several variations of the head and also made individual prints of the hands. Using a chisel, he chipped away parts of the face in order to achieve greater expressiveness, while certain areas were painted black to foster greater contrasts between forms. He developed an idiosyncratic style that combined two techniques: modelling (adding) and carving (subtracting). For his first — 11 BezoekersgidsPermeke-E.indd 11 14/06/16 15:21 life-size sculpture, Marie-Lou, he utilised the cutting-away technique.

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