EMIL CLAUS ενας ίσως από τους σημαντικότερους νεώτερους βέλγους ζωγράφους ,από τους πολύ αγαπημένους μου.
Emile Claus (27 September 1849 – 14 June 1924) was a Belgian painter.From 1869 to 1874, Claus trained at the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts with, amongst others, the landscape painter J. Jacobs. During his training, Claus attracted the attention of and found favour with the local upper middle class.In 1882, Claus completed Cock Fight in Flanders, his major breakthrough and a sensation when exhibited for the first time, in Antwerp. The work won him a gold medal at the Paris Salon.Artistically and financially, Claus soon prospered. The Antwerp Museum of Fine Arts purchased one of his works, and The Picknick (1887), his well-known painting showing a farmer’s family watching the Sunday outing of the urban bourgeoisie on the opposite bank of a small river (the Lys), was bought by the Belgian Royal Family.U

 

 

 nder the influence of Claude Monet, he developed a style that has been characterized as luminism. In 1904, he started the artist group Vie et Lumière ('Life and Light').In 1918, at his return from London after World War I and with the dawn of expressionism, Claus found his fame diminished. In 1921, he was given a last survey exhibition in Brussels, where especially his London works (about the city and the river Thames) made a positive impression on the public.During his years in Antwerp, Claus mainly painted portraits and realistic, anecdotal genre pieces.Stimulated by his friend, the author Camille Lemonnier, and influenced by the French impressionists, like Claude Monet whose works he got to know during his trips to Paris in the 1890s, Claus gradually shifted from naturalistic realism to a very personal style of impressionism called 'luminism', because of the luminous palette he used.Claus is considered to be the pioneer of Belgian luminism. In 1904, he founded the society Vie et Lumière ('life and light') and became known as the 'sun painter' and the 'painter of the Lys'.During the First World War, while in exile in London, he painted a series of views on the river Thames, known as "reflections on the Thames", in the style of Monet. They are his most traditional impressionist wo