FMP On-site Research 02: Léon Spilliaert

Léon Spilliaert exhibition at Royal Academy of Arts, 2020

Preface

March 3, 2020

Today I went to another exhibition took place at RA. Léon Spilliaert, a Belgian artist. In a career spanning five decades, Léon Spilliaert transposed onto paper a world that was as real as it was imagined, depicting the everyday surroundings of his life with a deep sensitivity not only to their appearance, but also to their essence. Inhabiting a somewhat nocturnal (night) realm owing to the insomnia that plagued him, he coped with his sleeplessness, along with a chronic stomach aiment, by walking, reading & working, finding solace in the loneliest hours by pacing the streets of Ostend and returning home to his easel.

Self-Portrait with Blue Sketchbook, 1907: Indian ink wash, brush, colored pencil & pastel on paper

Context

Working in Indian ink wash, watercolour, pen and pencil, he conjured a landscape of low skies, wide seas and endless beaches bathed in a glowing, timeless half-light, and mysterious forests where trees writhe with life, or loom in the shadows. Elsewhere are glimpses of wilent interiors in the dead of night, in which ordinary objects take on an otherworldly luminosity, or his own face gazes out with haunting focus.

His mind was always full of unanswered existential questions. What's worth mentioning is that many of of these self-portraits were produced at night in the glass-roofed sun room, which was populated with mirrors and pot plants. This unassuming room not only served as his studio, a place of intense creativity and experimentation, but was akin to a sanctuary for the troubled young artist.

Like many artist, Spilliaert examined himself dispassionately, representing what he saw without embellishment. Sitting or standing, he depicted himself reflected in the mirrors, at times working intensely with a drawing board propped up on the ubiquitous bentwood chair or draing in a skechbook, at others simply capturing his likeness. In fact, he seeks something else, delving beyond his appearance & attempting to reach into the INNER WORKING of his mind. Often, he depicts himself with dark rings around his sleepless eyes as if hallucinating from tiredness.