Sitting in the front room of the house where Gustaaf De Smet used to live and talking to the artist's old neighbour, I start to piece together a picture of who this Flemish Expressionist was.
De Smet and his wife Gusta built their house on land they bought from Verhegghe's father. It was the last home in which the couple lived and, following their deaths, was turned into a museum, in accordance with their wishes. At the time, the street in the Flemish village of Deurle was called Koedreef; today it is Gustaaf De Smetlaan.
De Smet, born in 1877, had also lived in Deurle and nearby Sint-Martens-Latem (East Flanders) at the start of the 20th century, when he became part of a second generation of artists to turn the area into a famous art colony. (The first had been at the turn of the century when a group of Symbolists gathered there.)
De Smet is best known as a Flemish Expressionist, and his most successful works were produced in the 1920s, after the First World War and before the onset of the Depression. His paintings from this period fetch a lot of money, with "De blauwe canape" ("The Blue Sofa", 1928), for example, selling about two decades ago for €750,000; the buyer was a Belgian textile magnate.
Some of De Smet's Expressionist paintings are on display in the museum, including "De Aardappelrooister" ("The Potato Digger", 1930), depicting a woman on her knees working in the fields, and "Het dorpszonnetje" ("The Village Sun", 1928), where the light glows through the picture from the sun in the distance over the fields and farmhouses to reach a woman in the foreground. Typical of Belgian Expressionism, rural and peasant themes dominate the works.
The roots of this period of De Smet's work developed while he was in the Netherlands to where he escaped during the First World War and where he saw exhibitions and read magazines full of modern German and French art. During this time, the influences of German Expressionism and Cubism start to emerge in his work. Several oil paintings from these war years can also be seen at the museum. The dominant themes are farmland, fields and houses, mostly in sombre tones.
De Smet returned to this darker palette in the 1930s. The arrival of the Depression meant that demand dried up for his fashionable Expressionist paintings, as people simply didn't have the money to buy them.
Not that De Smet seems to have been a man driven by money. In a glass cabinet of artefacts on the first floor of the museum, there is a letter dating from 1936 from the curator of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels offering 100,000 Belgian francs for the painting "Meisje in het blauw" ("Girl in Blue"). Verhegghe gives me an idea of that value by pointing out that his father had sold De Smet the land for his house, a plot that was actually big enough for two houses, for 20,000 Belgian francs.
But De Smet turned the princely sum down. The reason isn't known. Piet Boyens, whose 1989 book Gust De Smet is a key work on the artist, suggests that the reason was probably that De Smet didn't particularly need the money at the time and liked the work too much to let it out of his sight.
Other items in the display cabinet are a letter from fellow Flemish artist James Ensor, a photograph of the Deurle theatre group (for whom De Smet would paint stage sets for free) and De Smet's old pipe. The artist was apparently an avid smoker: "Gust couldn't be seen without a cigarette," says Verhegghe.
This corner of the museum, upstairs under the eaves, is also filled with black-and-white photographs of family, friends and other artists. In 1926, a photograph was taken of a group of local artists known as the Sélection-Circle, associated with the Belgian gallery Sélection and its monthly publication of the same name. De Smet is in the photograph, including the famous Russian-French artist Marc Chagall, who was visiting the artists' circle from his home in France.
You can also find a copy of a De Smet portrait, an accomplished work by his younger brother, Léon De Smet; it's hard to believe his brother was just 13 years old when he painted it. Léon De Smet also grew up to be a well-known painter, and he, too, has a museum in the village of Deurle dedicated to his work.
The Gust De Smet museum is small, but it feels like a true discovery, filled as it is with the artist's original furniture, including his easel, placed in front of an upstairs front window, and about 40 of his paintings. And the stories told by Verhegghe are a bonus.
Gust De Smet Museum
Gustaaf De Smetlaan 1
Deurle (Sint-Martens-Latem)
Open Wed-Sat, 14.00-18.00; Sun 14.00-17.00
www.toerisme-leiestreek.be
Deurle is a suburb of the artists’ colony village of Sint-Martens- Latem, just a few kilometres south of Ghent. The area was home to many famous Belgian artists in the 19th and first half of the 20th century. Among them were Gustaaf De Smet, his brother Léon De Smet, Xavier De Cock and Jenny Montigny. Their graves can all be found at the local church, just round the corner from the Gust De Smet museum.
On Gust De Smet’s gravestone is a sculpture of him with an elongated, bearded face and long, thin arms hanging by his sides. The sculpture is actually a replica of the original, which had to be replaced when the weather began to wear away its features. The original, with its face barely distinguishable, is propped up against the wall in the small entrance hall to the artist’s museum.
The church and graveyard are along one of the many walks around the village and its surroundings. The routes are named after some of Deurle’s artists, including the “De Smet brothers’ path”. There are also several art museums and galleries clustered in the village, making the rural area an excellent day trip. Though if you’re interested in a particular artist, check opening times; some museums are only by appointment.
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