The Etchings of Jules de Bruycker

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, etching enjoyed a period of bloom in Belgium. Artists such as Felicien Rops, Henri Leys and James Ensor (see The Low Countries 1994-95:156-167) began to master the technique and to create etchings alongside their paintings. Jules de Bruycker was a younger contemporary of James Ensor. He was born in Ghent in 1870 and died there in 1945. Critics have called De Bruycker ‘the greatest Belgian etcher after Ensor’. And indeed, he achieved a degree of virtuosity that still excites admiration today.

In honour of the fiftieth anniversary of his death, his home town held a retrospective of his work at the end of 1995. It was an ode to an artist whose art had shown a particular love for his native city. The 250 works which comprise his oeuvre mainly deal with the city and its inhabitants. From the very beginning of his career, De Bruycker placed ordinary people at the foreground of his work. He sought his inspiration on the streets, in the theatre and particularly at the market places. In his later work these characters were reduced to mere details and architectural themes became more prominent. These prints were clearly influenced by the work of the British artist Frank Brangwyn, which De Bruycker saw at the 1913 World Fair in Ghent.

When De Bruycker fled to London in 1914, Brangwyn helped him again by sending him some etching materials. De Bruycker remained in London from 1914 till 1919 and made a number of etchings of the city. There he met other British artists, including Walter R. Sickert, and was also influenced by the work of the American painter and etcher James Whistler. De Bruycker was fascinated by the pace of life in the big city, as can be seen in his prints of Picadilly and Ludgate Circus. During his stay in London he was deeply impressed by photographs of the war in his native land, and created a series of prints on the horrors of the Great War. These are large etchings created with technical perfection, in which De Bruycker ridicules the German occupation in the most grotesque manner. Ensor's influence can be seen in a few of these prints. A number of preliminary studies for these etchings still exist and show that De Bruycker was a gifted draughtsman.

In 1919 De Bruycker returned to Ghent. After such a long absence, he was once again inspired by the monumental buildings of his native city. The St Nicholas Church in particular was one of his favourite subjects; he made a series of large prints of it, all varying in slight detail. During the same period, he also made a series of 16 illustrations for an edition of Charles de Coster's La Légende d'Uilenspiegel et de Lamme Goedzak (1867).

Given the quality of his work, it is certainly justifiable to consider De Bruycker as one of the most important Belgian etchers of the first half of this century. Prints such as Jan Palfijn's House (1912), Placing the Dragon on the Belfry (1914) and his war etchings show that his technique and skill had reached

near perfection. And this was soon noticed abroad. As early as 1922-23, exhibitions of his work were held in a number of North American cities (Chicago, Detroit, Muskegon, etc.), and several years later (1929-1930) a new series of exhibitions was held. And yet, De Bruycker is still not a universally recognised artist; perhaps because he was too attached to Ghent. Apart from his stay in London, where he created some of his best works, and a couple of trips to France, he seldom ventured outside his own familiar territory.

It is good, therefore, that there is renewed interest in his work. And this interest does not stop at the exhibition in Ghent. In 1996, seventy years on, a small exhibition of his work toured the United States, where it was on display at a number of museums including the Spenser Museum of Art at the University of Kansas, from where it travelled to the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens, ga, finally ending its journey at the Elvehjem Museum of Art in Madison, wi.

 

dirk van assche

Translated by Peter Flynn.

Further reading

Moniek Nagels et al., Jules de Bruycker: Etser. Ghent, 1995.