Name: Lecture about Jakob Smits (and Vincent van Gogh)
Start: 2025-04-19T15:00:00+00:00
End: 2025-04-19T17:00:00+00:00
Location: The Yellow House in Princenhage

The Yellow House in Princenhage

Piet Deceuninck and Willy Thijs will give a lecture about the artist Jakob Smits during the Yellow Hour. They will project many images. 
Jakob Smits (Rotterdam 1855 – Mol 1928) was a European just like the two years older Vincent van Gogh. Ultimately, his Walden was not far over the Belgian-Dutch border, in the Antwerp Kempen. He found his chosen place, his hermitage, in Mol-Achterbos. He lived and worked there in symbiosis with nature, with the farmers and their animals. The barren Kempen soil became an inexhaustible breeding ground for his art. 
Having outgrown his decorative work and the Hague impressionism, he developed a symbolist oeuvre from 1888, an equally personal interpretation of country life as that of Paul Gauguin in Pont-Aven. He had found his new procedure. Synthetism took him further to naïve interpretations of religious and rural themes. Ultimately, he evolved into a form of expressionism that made him a mentor to many Flemish expressionists. At the same time, his work stands in eternal relation to Rembrandt, whom he admired immensely. As a master of light, he also became a forerunner of the material painters. His art was never frivolous. Like Van Gogh, he painted from a deep conviction that a higher world could be made tangible through art. 
Due to circumstances, Jakob Smits became Belgian. But his Dutch connections essentially make him a bridging figure. George Breitner was his fellow student in Rotterdam, Richard Bisschop was a lifelong friend, and he had a close artistic bond with Suze Robertson (she implemented gold leaf in her unforgettable portraits inspired by Smits). In Achterbos, Dutch friends and colleagues also came to visit him. 
A major exhibition of Art from Today in Antwerp (1914) brought his work into direct dialogue with that of James Ensor, Rik Wouters, and Vincent van Gogh. Likewise, his work was acclaimed in Dresden, Munich, and Paris. Sign up via the website.

Piet Deceuninck and Willy Thijs take you on a journey through the fascinating life and work of Jakob Smits, with a lecture full of images. This artist found his inspiration in the rural life of Kempen and grew to become a symbolist master, a bridging figure between the Netherlands and Belgium, and a mentor to many Flemish expressionists.