Léon Frédéric "The Lake" 1898
I have two questions for you today. 1. Why have I never heard of Léon Frédéric before? And 2. What is it about Belgium that it produces such awesome artists? I think I may need to plan a Belgian Magritte/Delvaux/Frédéric/chocolate/beer excursion soon. Anyway, I encountered the work of Léon Frédéric at the Philadelphia Museum of Art this weekend, and was totally entranced. They have his paintings "The Source of Life" and "The Four Seasons" there, and they are giant, glowing, gobsmackers teeming with color and bounty. Jpegs truly shame these works, they are astounding in person. There was a woman there looking at one of the pieces and she literally had her jaw hanging open for minutes on end. I knew just how she felt.
His work appears in histories of Symbolist art although it's nearly always The Lake which they show. Understandable, I suppose, since it's such a bizarre painting. Tom Rapp used it on the sleeve of one of his Pearls Before Swine albums in the 1970s although I forget which one.
Posted by: John Coulthart | February 02, 2009 at 11:19 AM
Incidentally, I am from Belgium (which explains why we have some more obscure Belgian artists on the website) and even here Léon Frédéric is completely unknown to the general public. His main problem might be that you cannot really put him in one particular art style/movement which makes him a less obvious choice for exhibition creators.
Posted by: Artinthepicture.com | February 02, 2009 at 11:27 AM
Wonderful! Reminds me of Flaming June crossed with JWW's St. Eulalia. Which also reminds me of a poem I just read. . .
Posted by: Bioephemera | February 22, 2009 at 01:05 AM