VAN DE WOESTIJNE :
A CERTAIN EXPRESSION OF SUFFERING Gustave van de Woestijne was born in Gent in 1881 and studied painting there.
Suffering from ill health he however had to make frequent stays in the countryside nearby before settling in Laethem-Saint-Martin in 1899. There he met Georges Minne, Valerius de Saedeler and Albert Servaes. They all formed the first Laethem-Saint-Martin group, the second being set up by Permeke, van den Berghe and de Smet.
These painters shared a passion for primitive Flemish painters who had been rediscovered in Bruges. They also admired Fra Angelico and tried to react against Impressionism and to find back the concrete and daily reality of things.
Van de Woestijne first painted small portraits with a minute touch in a technique close to that of the primitive Flemish painters and then turned to religious compositions.
Brueghel inspired his portraits of peasants while his religious works were reminiscent of those of Maurice Denis.
Van de Woestijne sought refuge in England during the First World War and his style became tougher. After the war all the painters of the Laethem-Saint-Martin groups exhibited their works at the Selection gallery and materialised their global vision under the National Expressionism label.
Van de Woestijne then adopted a more dramatic touch regarding lines and colours and expressed suffering and moral solitude in his religious paintings. He headed the Academy of Fine Arts of Malines between 1925 and 1928 and also taught at the Superior Institute of Fine Arts of Antwerp and at the Superior Institute of Decorative Arts in Brussels. He died in 1947.
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