George Morren
George Morren or Georges Morren (born July 27, 1868 in Ekeren , Belgium , † November 21, 1941 in Brussels , Belgium) was a Belgian sculptor, impressionist and engraver.
Career
George Morren, the third child of Anna Henrica van den Wouwer and Arthur Morren, a wealthy grain merchant in Antwerp, was born during the reign of King Leopold II in Ekeren , the northern district of Antwerp. He grew up in a middle-class and francophile family. His upbringing included an artistic training. The painter Emile Claus served as his art tutor, who taught him and his brothers several times a week. In the following years Claus convinced the father of George Morren to enroll his son at the Artesis Hogeschool Antwerp in 1888 , despite the bad reputation of the institute at the time.
In 1889 Morren made the acquaintance of Henry van de Velde . Thanks to him, he attended the Société des Vingt fairs in Brussels and the art exhibitions of freelancers in Paris ( France ) as well as Belgian and foreign modern artists . Impressed by the personality and the work of Henry van de Velde, made Morren in the years 1890 to 1892 some works closely and regularly punctuated contrasting color scheme, conform to the theories of the French painter Georges Seurat the pointillism on.
Influenced by the ideas of the British painters William Morris and Walter Crane , both advocates of the applied arts, he participated between 1893 and 1900 in the creation of jewelry, everyday objects, wallpaper, etc. During this time he also completed his artistic training in Paris. He worked in the studios of the French painters Alfred Philippe Roll , Eugène Carrière , Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Henri Gervex .
Very quickly tired of the shortened painting process to which Neo-Impressionism was subject, Morren gradually developed further on an artistic level from the summer of 1892. He increasingly focused on spontaneity, which created more space for emotions. He became one of the most ardent admirers of the French Impressionists. His work is kept in the spirit of Pierre-Auguste Renoir : joie de vivre, refined sensuality of young women while strolling through the gardens or during their intimate moments. Morren created light-flooded paintings that were exhibited between 1895 and 1913 at the La Libre Esthétique trade fairs in Brussels, the Vie et Lumière and numerous international exhibitions. He reached the peak of his second great artistic career between 1904 and 1907 ( Luminism : Le mois des roses et L'été ) and ended on the eve of the First World War .
In 1897 he married Juliette Melges. The couple lived in Antwerp for ten years before moving to Brussels in 1910. He also bought a property in France, near the city of Saint-Germain-en-Laye . It was this paradisiacal setting, not far from the property of the French painters Maurice Denis , Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard , which he visited several times, where he later spent most of the time. Around 1913 he entered a new creative period. The colors on his new works were dull. For this he used rubbed, rough pigments ( pastel painting ). Morren stayed true to himself. He did not go into new trends such as cubism or expressionism . He dealt with scenes of daily life ( La pergola , 1929), with interiors in a fine atmosphere, with shimmering bouquets of flowers ( Pivoines , 1919), with appealing landscapes, with portraits, where he preferred dark tones and the paintings as a result serious and full of clarity and with naked attractive people ( Le sommeil , 1922).
He returned to Belgium in 1926. In the following years he exhibited works from his entire creative period in the Georges Giroux gallery in Brussels. The press unanimously praised the retrospective . In contrast, the feedback from the public was more restrained. In 1931 a new retrospective took place in the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles . This time the exhibition was a great success and attracted a wide audience.
In a 1934 letter he wrote that he had destroyed or changed some of his earlier works. In his last creative period ( période de synthèse ) he turned to the smooth style of painting. The lacquer layer used is thin and distributed over a large area, similar to a watercolor . If any form in impressionism occasionally appeared in the landscapes, then this had less shimmer. The color was increasingly used independently of the play of light. The shadow disappeared. More emphasis was placed on the aesthetics of the ephemeral. The color variations changed constantly ( Le bâton de rouge , 1941).
His wife died in 1936. A year later he married Orpha Demets (born November 11, 1911). George Morren died on November 21, 1941 at his home in Brussels while preparing for a new retrospective at the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles. This took place in April 1942. It was overshadowed by the German occupation during World War II .
Works (selection)
- Sunday Afternoon , 1892
- Le Renouveau , 1892
- Les perches à haricots , 1892
- Corando a Roupa , 1894
- La jeune femme à sa toilette , 1903
- Le mois des roses et L'été , 1904–1907
- Renoncules , 1907
- Rue de village , around 1912
- Mand met appelen - Le panier de pommes , 1914
- Herderin , 1916
- Pruimen en dahlia’s , 1917
- Pivoines , 1919
- Le sommeil , 1921-1922
- La pergola , 1929
- Les Dolomites - Cortina d'Ampezzo , 1937
- Le Piano , 1939
- Le bâton de rouge , 1941
- A still life of a vase of summer flowers, a teapot
- Le Basin de Neptune, Versailles: the palace gardens
- Nature morte aux fruits et legumes
Web links
- George Morren on the museerops.be website
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Morren, George |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Morren, Georges |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Belgian sculptor, impressionist and engraver |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 27, 1868 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Antwerp , Belgium |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 21, 1941 |
| Place of death | Brussels , Belgium |