A striking pastel by the Belgian artist Kurt Peiser, illustrating his most iconic subject : the depiction the workers\u2019 hard life, the existence of the poorest communities of Brussels and Antwerp, and the overall misery of these characters. Following the example of Constantin Meunier, Peiser became a key figure of Belgian realism, and social representation. If he started his career as a marine painter, from 1910 his main interest was human condition, and the struggle of the workers and prostitutes. His artworks are so powerful, and authentic, that he was put on trial for \u201catteinte \u00e0 la morale\u201d when he exhibited some of his art in Antwerp in 1914. With a talent for portraying these melancholic silhouettes, giving them an elegant stature while surrounding them in a dark crowd : The individual struggle and the heaviness of the masses. <\/p>\n
Belgian author Louis-Paul Boon, editor of the communist paper De Roode Vaan, wrote about the artist : \u00ab Nous sortions \u00e0 peine de l\u2019\u00e9cole et, avec nos yeux \u00e9blouis d\u2019adolescents, nous commencions \u00e0 peine \u00e0 remarquer que la vie, la v\u00e9ritable vie, \u00e9tait tout \u00e0 fait diff\u00e9rente de celle que nous avaient pr\u00e9sent\u00e9es nos professeurs. C\u2019est alors que vint Peiser et qu\u2019il fit s\u2019\u00e9crouler devant nos yeux les rideaux de ce monde de th\u00e9\u00e2tre. Dans ses tableaux, il nous faisait voir une vie de peine et de souffrance. Il exprimait sans retenue une accusation que nous ne commencions \u00e0 murmurer qu\u2019avec h\u00e9sitation. C\u2019\u00e9taient les \u00e9quipes de nuit, les morts \u00e0 la t\u00e2che, les chevaux mourants, les filles des plaisirs mis\u00e9rables, qui suscitaient notre compassion. \u00c0 nos yeux, Peiser \u00e9tait un g\u00e9ant, un homme qui portait bien haut l\u2019\u00e9tendard de la r\u00e9volte. \u00bb<\/p>\n
[We had just finished our secondary education and with our still dazzled young eyes of teenagers, we begun to note that life, the real life ,was completely different from what we were presented by our teachers. Then came Peiser who made to crumble the curtains of this theatrical world. In his paintings, he made us see a life of pain and suffering. He expressed without restrain a charge that we started to murmur with hesitation. It was the nightshifts, the casualties at work, the dying horses, the women of miserable pleasures that stimulated our compassion. To our eyes, Peiser was a giant, a men who bared high the standard of the revolt.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A striking pastel by the Belgian artist Kurt Peiser, illustrating his most iconic subject : the depiction the workers\u2019 hard life, the existence of the poorest communities of Brussels and Antwerp, and the overall misery of these characters. Following the example of Constantin Meunier, Peiser became a key figure of Belgian realism, and social representation. … Continue reading \u00ab\u00a0Kurt Peiser\u00a0\u00bb<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillisgoldman.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4600\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillisgoldman.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillisgoldman.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillisgoldman.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillisgoldman.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=4600"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gillisgoldman.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4600\/revisions\/"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5387,"href":"https:\/\/gillisgoldman.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4600\/revisions\/5387\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillisgoldman.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4770\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillisgoldman.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=4600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillisgoldman.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=4600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillisgoldman.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=4600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}