Henry de Groux

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Henry Jules Charles Corneille de Groux (born September 15, 1866 in Brussels , Sint-Joost-ten-Node , † January 12, 1930 in Marseille ) was a painter , lithographer and sculptor whose work contributed to the development of symbolism .

Life

He caused a stir in 1889 with his painting of the Mocking of Christ, Christ aux outrages . The theme is taken up again ten years later with the painting Zola aux outrages in a secular variant. His production gains breadth with its openness to historical topics while at the same time being interested in the fantastic moment that challenges interpretation.

De Groux was the son of Charles de Groux , himself a painter of socialist realism . He changed the name spelling in order to have an aristocratic undertone. He had his breakthrough as an artist in 1886 with an exhibition of works in Brussels, which earned him admission to the artist group of the Société des Vingt ; James Ensor , Félicien Rops , Fernand Khnopff , Constantin Meunier , Georges Seurat , Camille Pissarro and Auguste Rodin belonged to the circle. De Groux saw the work on Christ aux outrages as his own artistic manifesto. A friend, William Degouve de Nuncques , represented the Christ model, with whom de Groux identified himself no less in the role of the misunderstood artist.

In 1890 he was excluded from the circle of twenty after he had refused to display his Christ in an exhibition of the twenty next to Vincent van Gogh's sunflower paintings (ridiculed by him as "hideous flower pots") and works by Paul Signac and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec . The Brussels Triënale became his exhibition venue. His Christ received a split reception a little later in Paris, where de Groux, however, made friends in the literary scene. After the move, Léon Bloy and Émile Zola , whom he also granted physical protection during the Dreyfus affair , were among his closer circle of friends . Portraits of Charles Baudelaire , Ludwig II. Of Bavaria , Napoleon Bonaparte , Charles the Bold , Honoré de Balzac are part of this period, alongside pictures that bridge the gap between history painting and symbolism with subjects by Virgil , Dante and Richard Wagner .

With lithographs he took up the First World War as a new topic from 1914 . In the last decade of his life, he lived in Avignon , Vernègues and Marseille .

An extensive diary has come down to us from de Groux. The 18 volumes that began in 1892 were donated to the French Institute national d'histoire de l'art in 2002 by their descendants . A selection of texts appeared in 2007.

Works (selection)

  • Christ aux outrages - The Mocking of Christ (1889)

  • Valkyries ride (around 1890), Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België, Brussels

  • Zola aux outrages - The Mocking of Zola (1898)

  • Vers la Grotte (around 1900)

  • Portrait of James Ensor (1907), Ostend, Kunstmuseum aan Zee

  • Portrait of Charles the Bold (undated)

literature

  • Hans Vollmer : Groux, Henry Jules Charles Corneille de . In: Ulrich Thieme , Fred. C. Willis (Ed.): General lexicon of visual artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 15 : Gresse – Hanselmann . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1922, p. 115 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  • Albert Aurier: Henri de Groux . In: Mercure de France , October 1891, pp. 223-229.
  • Echoes divers et communications . In: Mercure de France , September 1894, pp. 94-95.
  • André Fontainas: Notes à propos de Henry de Groux . In: Mercure de France , March 1898, p. 787.
  • Guillaume Apollinaire: La Vie anecdotique: Prédiction de Mme Violette-Deroy. M. Henry de Groux. Les Cubistes. Le Doyen des écrivains d'art . In: Mercure de France , October 16, 1911, pp. 890-892.
  • René-Louis Doyon: Mémoire d'homme. Souvenirs irréguliers d'un écrivain qui ne l'est pas moins, La Connaissance . 1953, pp. 124-126.
  • Gustave Le Rouge: Henry de Groux, cité parmi les ouvrages du même auteur dans le Prisonnier de la planète Mars, July 1, 1908 [bibliographie de Francis Lacassin, in l'Amérique des dollars et du crime, Bouquins, Robert Laffont, 1993].

Web links

Commons : Henry de Groux  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Henry de Groux 1866-1930 - journal , ed. by Rodolphe Rapetti, Pierre Wat. Editions Kimé, 2007. ISBN 978-2-84174-417-6 www.dessinoriginal.com ( Memento of the original of February 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , briefly discussed by Jean-David Jumeau-Lafond www.latribunedelart.com @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dessinoriginal.com
personal data
SURNAME De Groux, Henry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian painter of symbolism
DATE OF BIRTH September 15, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Brussels
DATE OF DEATH January 12, 1930
Place of death Marseille