Eugeen Vansteenkiste
°Wevelgem 31- 01-1896
+ Ypres 13 - 03 -1963
This site is a tribute to one of the important representatives of symbolism and Art Nouveau in Flanders.
Eugeen Vansteenkiste mainly spent his youth outdours, in parks and nature reserves, where he received many indelible impressions. These impressions led to a feeling of reality and the deeper meaning in a mysterious and fairy-like way. He strives to discover the invisible behind the visible, to let it shine like a rainbow in his art.
With this late romantic there is a frail abundance flowing out of the classical design of his works. Eugeen went to academies in Antwerp, Mechlin, Ghent and Courtrai.
He became acquainted with the masters in The Netherlands and in the German cities of Leipzig and Dresden while accompanying his father and the family on business travels. His father was namely a pioneer of the flax industry.
He studies the romantic-mythical mind of L. Richter, von Schwind, C.D. Friederich, Böcklin, M. Klinger and others from within by copying their work.
Unintentional, the chapel where Novalis used to pray ( Friedrich von Hardenberg, 1772-1801), eventually became his studio. Novalis was a scientist, a mine engineer and an artist. Vansteenkiste is called the painter of "The Blue Flower", the symbol of the poetry of life from Novalis' novel "Heinrich von Ofterdingen". Novalis' device, "the more poetic, the more truthful", also becomes him. Let life become practical poetry! This attitude of life enables mankind to dominate technocracy and consumption and not the other way around.
Convinced there was a splintering occurring, the artist started working from a pure mind towards his own style. Once again he combines from mind and sensation and conscious shines harmony from his works of art.
Looking for expression, he uses among other things the techniques of the Flemisch primitives to create diaphanous images.
In his evolution he lets his pictorial shapes prosper from sober Gothic to abundant baroque life. He is inspired by primal images, filtered through his vision of life and lets it grow in his Art Nouveau style with symbolic and romantic elements.
Within his respect for the cultivation of the conscious soul, man and nature have to remain priority. He creates from refined images present in the collective subconsciousness. All of this contributes to the ageless disposition of his work.
Allow yourself to meet him in the symphony, the play of rhythm, colors and lines of his work.