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Published by Hannibal Books to accompany at exhibition Through half-open Doors at Patrick Derom Gallery, Brussels, until August 14
Insomniac and largely self-taught artist Leon Spilliaert is the master of absence, silence and solitude.
His best-known evocations of emptiness are coastal scenes in his native Ostend informed by nocturnal wandering through the deserted port.
The premise of this Brussels exhibition with an accompanying art house book to heighten our appreciation is that his internal scenes are as effective at conjuring mystery as the external ones.
The project was conceived at the height of the COVID lockdown when for many of us interiors took on new significance and Spilliaert’s intense scrutiny of neglected corners, elegant introversion and sense of suspended animation were more resonant than ever.
Spilliaert’s family home was where he lived and created art for the first 35 years of his life, barring a few months at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bruges. He abandoned formal art studies because of illness.
The house, which included Spilliaert’s father’s perfume shop and a hairdressing salon, was in Kapellestraat. The street is still the main pedestrianised thoroughfare in Ostend , but the house was destroyed by German bombing during World War Two, leaving us with no means to compare the objective reality with Spilliaert’s oblique view.
The house may well have been full of the hustle and bustle of clients, family and friends, but through Spilliaert’s eyes, we see only shadows, abandoned coats, piles of unattended possessions, empty chairs and an attic with a glass ceiling.
The light is crucial to the dream-like mood and Spilliaert taught himself to use a range of media to convey it. Shadows are thrown through windows, cast by lamps, shells from the Ostend coast shimmer, polished bentwood chairs gleam and the flasks of Spilliaert’s perfumier father glint with reflections at once precise and improbable.
Above all, Spilliaert makes use of mirrors to extend our gaze and deepen our sense of the strangeness of things and how they reflect their owners.
Leon Spilliaert: Interiors and Still Lifes
Published by Hannibal Books to accompany at exhibition Through half-open Doors at Patrick Derom Gallery, Brussels, until August 14
Insomniac and largely self-taught artist Leon Spilliaert is the master of absence, silence and solitude.
His best-known evocations of emptiness are coastal scenes in his native Ostend informed by nocturnal wandering through the deserted port.
The premise of this Brussels exhibition with an accompanying art house book to heighten our appreciation is that his internal scenes are as effective at conjuring mystery as the external ones.
The project was conceived at the height of the COVID lockdown when for many of us interiors took on new significance and Spilliaert’s intense scrutiny of neglected corners, elegant introversion and sense of suspended animation were more resonant than ever.
Spilliaert’s family home was where he lived and created art for the first 35 years of his life, barring a few months at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bruges. He abandoned formal art studies because of illness.
The house, which included Spilliaert’s father’s perfume shop and a hairdressing salon, was in Kapellestraat. The street is still the main pedestrianised thoroughfare in Ostend , but the house was destroyed by German bombing during World War Two, leaving us with no means to compare the objective reality with Spilliaert’s oblique view.
The house may well have been full of the hustle and bustle of clients, family and friends, but through Spilliaert’s eyes, we see only shadows, abandoned coats, piles of unattended possessions, empty chairs and an attic with a glass ceiling.
The light is crucial to the dream-like mood and Spilliaert taught himself to use a range of media to convey it. Shadows are thrown through windows, cast by lamps, shells from the Ostend coast shimmer, polished bentwood chairs gleam and the flasks of Spilliaert’s perfumier father glint with reflections at once precise and improbable.
Above all, Spilliaert makes use of mirrors to extend our gaze and deepen our sense of the strangeness of things and how they reflect their owners.
Barbara Lewis © 2026.
By Barbara Lewis • added recently on London Grip, art, books, exhibitions • Tags: art, Barbara Lewis, books, exhibitions