Henri Hymans

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Henri Simon Hymans (born August 8, 1836 in Antwerp , † January 23, 1912 in Brussels ) was a Belgian lithographer and art historian .

Life

Henri Hymans' father was a doctor and moved to Brussels from North Holland just before Belgium became independent in 1830 ; his brother was the future historian Louis Hymans (1829-1884). From there the family moved to Antwerp, the birthplace of Henri Hymans. His mother Sophie Hymans, née Josephs, soon took the boy to the Antwerp museums. During his school days, Henri Hymans took drawing courses with Edward Dujardin (1817–1889) at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp . After the father's death in 1849, the family moved to Brussels. Henri Hymans continued to take drawing lessons from François Stroobant (1819–1916). Stroobant introduced the boy to lithography. In 1857 Henri Hymans began his career as a trainee under chief curator Louis Alvin (1806-1887) in the printing works of the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels. The printing shop was opened to the public in April 1859. In 1860 Henri Hymans was given a permanent position and a grant to continue his lithographic project. However, he decided to stop working as a lithographer in favor of art history studies. In 1875 the printing house of the Royal Library became a separate department under Henri Hymans' direction. In 1877, on the occasion of the celebration of Rubens' three hundredth birthday in Antwerp, Hymans, together with the Rubens researcher Max Rooses and others, was involved in compiling the catalog for the Rubens exhibition. In December 1877, Henri Hymans became professor of aesthetics and art history at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp.

In 1883, Hymans was elected a corresponding member of the Classe des Beaux-Arts of the Académie Royale de Belgique . A year later he became a full professor of art history at the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts and held the chair until 1909.

In 1885, Henri Hymans was elected a full member of the Académie Royale de Belgique. He soon became a permanent contributor to Biographie nationale , a publication of this institution. In Antwerp he was elected president of the Académie royale d'archéologie de Belgique in 1887 . In 1886, Hymans became the correspondent of the Parisian Gazette des Beaux-Arts for Belgium. During the following quarter of a century he commented on the current art scene and the current exhibitions, including the Van Dyck exhibition in Antwerp in 1899 and the exhibition of the Flemish primitives in Bruges in 1902. Hymans wrote artist biographies - for example, in 1888 on Quinten Matsys and 1891 on Pieter Brueghel the older one . In 1893 Hymans published the monograph on the engraver Lucas Vorsterman . From 1904 until his retirement in 1909 he was chief curator of the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels and head of the copper engraving cabinet there . In 1910 he published a monograph on the portrait painter Antonio Moro . From 1907 to 1911 his entries on Flemish painters appeared in the first six volumes of the Thieme-Becker artist lexicon .

In an obituary in 1912, Max Rooses acknowledged the scientific quality and solid character of Henri Hymans' research. According to Rooses, the art historian Hymans “la plume à la main” (French: “pen in hand”) died.

Henri Hymans married Fanny Cluysenaar, the sister of the painter Alfred Cluysenaar , in 1867 .

Publications (selection)

  • Johann Wussin: Jonas Suyderhoef. Son oeuvre gravé, classé et décrit . Traduit de l'allemand, annoté et augmenté by Henri Hymans. Brussels 1862 ( archive.org ).
  • Histoire de la gravure dans l'école de Rubens. FJ Olivier, Brussels 1879 (French, archive.org ).
  • Ferdinand de Braekeleer , 1792-1883. Notice biographique. F. Hayez, Brussels 1884 (French, archive.org ).
  • Le réalisme. Son influence sur la peinture contemporaine. F. Hayez, Brussels 1884 (French, archive.org ).
  • Le livre des peintres de Carel van Mander . Vie des peintres flamands, hollandais et allemands (1604). J. Rouam, Paris 1884 (French, archive.org ).
  • Histoire de la gravure sur bois en Belgique . 1887
  • Notice sur la vie et les travaux de Nicaise de Keyser , membre de l'Académie, directeur de l'Académie royale des beaux-arts. F. Hayez, Brussels 1889 (French, archive.org ).
  • Lucas Vorsterman. Catalog raisonné de son oeuvre, précédé d'une notice sur la vie et les ouvrages du maître. E. Bruylant, Brussels 1893 (French, archive.org ).
  • Bruges and Ypres . With 115 illustrations. EA Seemann, Leipzig 1900 ( archive.org ).
  • Ghent and Tournai . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1902 ( archive.org ).
  • L'exposition des primitifs flamands à Bruges. Gazette des beaux-arts, Paris 1902 (French, archive.org ).
  • Histoire de la lithographie en Belgique . 1903.
  • 19th century Belgian art. EA Seemann, Leipzig 1906 ( archive.org ).
  • Les van Eyck. Biography critique. H. Laurens, Paris 1907 (French, archive.org ).
  • Catalog des estampes d'ornement. Faisant partie des collections de la Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, classé par nature d'objets suivi d'un index alphabétique des noms d'auteurs et accompagné de planches. Henri Lamertin, Brussels 1907 (French, archive.org ).
  • Antonio Moro. Son oeuvre et son temps. G. van Oest, Brussels 1910 (French, archive.org ).
  • Brussels. With 139 engravings. H. Laurens, Paris 1910 (French, archive.org ).
  • The Servatius legend. A Dutch block book. Bruno Cassirer, Berlin 1911.
  • Contributions to the Encyclopædia Britannica 1911
  • Œuvres de Henri Hymans . 4 volumes, Hayez, Brussels 1920–1921 (collected small writings; archive.org ).

literature

  • Max Rooses : Henri Hymans (1836-1912). Notice biographique et bibliographique . In: Bulletin Académie royale d'archéologie de Belgique 1912, 2, pp. 123–156.
  • Lucien Solvay: Notice on Henri Hymans . In: Annuaire de l'Académie 1922/23, pp. 41-100.
  • Hymans, Henri . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 18 : Hubatsch – Ingouf . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1925, p. 212 .
  • Mina Martens: Henri Hymans . In: Biographie nationale de Belgique Vol. 30, Supplément Vol. 2, 1959, pp. 466-470.

Web links

Commons : Henri Hymans  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Remarks

  1. ^ Fanny Cluysenaar: Les Cluysenaar, une famille d'artistes . Weissenbruch, Brussels 1928.
personal data
SURNAME Hymans, Henri
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hymans, Henri Simon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian lithographer and art historian
DATE OF BIRTH August 8, 1836
PLACE OF BIRTH Antwerp
DATE OF DEATH January 23, 1912
Place of death Brussels