Léon Spilliaert


Dour but lovely exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at the life and work of the Belgium artist Léon Spilliaert.

From the advertising for this show I feared it might be quite depressing, with quite a Munch like feel to a lot of the work, but a lot of the pictures were beautiful and insightful and more colourful than I had imagined.

I loved the first room of self-portraits from the very realistic to the more impressionistic with hollow eyes and one a complete silhouette. I liked a picture in this section of his studio showing the glass roof, a work room as self-portrait.

I also loved the intense seascapes, wonderful studies in blue and green which almost showed nothing and yet you knew what they were. Alongside these were pictures of women on the shoreline which he saw on insomniac walks around Ostend.

There were some Modernist pictures of an airship from strange angles which he was commissioned to paint including this one of it in its hangar, and some beautiful, almost Chardin like, still lives including a single off centre bowl and boxes in front of a mirror.

Closes 25 May 2020

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