Mellery's Meditation
Xavier Mellery (1845-1921) AND the Soul of Things
Mellery's Meditation Xavier Mellery (1845-1921) and the Soul of Things
Online exhibition Spring 2021
+1917.362.5585 | info@mireillemosler.com | www.mireillemosler.com
Xavier Mellery Self portrait Oil on canvas 67 x 55 cm. Signed 'XMellery' The Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels Inv.no. 3911
Perhaps not as well-known and prolific as his famous student and contemporary Fernand Khnopff (1858-1921), Xavier Mellery is considered a pivotal pioneer of Belgian Symbolism. With a finite number of works - mostly kept in public collections in Belgium - Mellery's creative legacy and influence is anything but inconsequential. Considered one of the founders of the art movement in Belgium, who made a prodigious contribution to its early development in the 1880s, Mellery did not receive the international recognition he deserves. Both his paintings and drawings are distinguished by their monumentality, in spite of their relatively small size, and loaded with a deep allegorical content, yet they seem to proclaim scenes from daily life. It is these contrasts and contradictions that are still as mysterious and alluring today. Born on August 9, 1845 as the son of a gardener at the Royal Palace of Laeken, near Brussels, the young artist was first apprenticed to the decorative painter Charles Albert (1821-1889). His training continued at the Académie Royale des BeauxArts in Brussels in 1860. In 1870, Mellery won the prestigious Prix de Rome, travelling to Italy via Germany. Upon his return to Brussels four years later, Mellery rented a studio from Félix Mommen (1827-1914), patron and dealer in artists' supplies. This curious combination of ateliers, exhibition space, factory, and shop, known as Ateliers Mommen, provided a lively artistic exchange and the place where Khnopff became Mellery's apprentice in 1875. Rooted in academic tradition, Mellery developed a symbolist art based on realism and regularly exhibited at the salons of the artists associations Les XX (Les Vingt), La Libre Esthétique, Salon de la Rose+Croix and Pour L'Art.
Executed in various techniques, it is in Mellery's drawings that this realism reveals the invisible behind the visible in everyday surroundings, questioning the ensouled nature of the objects depicted, described by him as l'ame des choses or the soul of things. These elements of silence and secrecy, together with his internalized perception of the world through his enigmatic interiors is the artist's unique contribution to Belgian art at the turn of the nineteenth century. Through diffuse lighting and homochromatic colors, Mellery divulges the uncanny and unfamiliar in the ordinary. In the semi-darkness of the dim light, individual objects are pallidly outlined, concealing a life of their own, turning the familiar quietly into the strange and unpredictable. It is in these visual puzzles revolving around everyday objects and situations that the principle of Symbolism is revealed, namely to perceive and to expect a different, unknown meaning behind every manifestation of reality. The mystical intimist Mellery died one hundred years ago on February 4, 1921. Only two monographic posthumous exhibitions took place since: in 1937 in Brussels at the Museum of Fine Arts and in 2002 at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Museum of Ixelles, Brussels. In the United States, Mellery was included in the first and last comprehensive exhibition on Belgian symbolism Belgian Art: 1880-1914 in The Brooklyn Museum in 1980. Still, only the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas own his work. Since Belgium's creation in 1830, its search for a cultural identity began. At the nation's semicentennial exhibition in 1880, the necessity of an own style void of foreign influence became a prerequisite. In search of glorious times from the past, artists embraced the prosperous period of Flemish Primitives as the esthetic heritage of the country's pictorial tradition of realism. Continuing this cultural heritage, Mellery's symbiosis of idiomatic expressions with national artistic identity contributed to the development and global success of a national art, now known as Belgian Symbolism.
1 Xavier Mellery (1845-1921) Baptême sur l'Ile de Marken (Baptism in Marken Island), 1879 Pastel, watercolor and charcoal on paper 20½ by 31½ inches (52 by 80 cm.) Signed 'X MELLERY'
Provenance Palais des Beaux-Arts- Servarts, Brussels, 11 May 1999, lot 416 Collection Maurice Verbaet, Antwerp With Eric Gillis Fine Art, Brussels Cornette de Saint Cyr, Brussels, 9 December 2018, lot 72 Private collection, New York Exhibited Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Xavier Mellery: De ziel der dingen, 14 April – 2 July 2000 Brussels, Musée d’Ixelles, Xavier Mellery: L’âme des choses, 27 July – 8 October 2000 Literature Jules Potvin, Xavier Mellery 1845-1921, Brussels 1925, p. 60 Arnold Goffin, "Xavier Mellery", in: La Revue d'art. Nouvelle série de l' "Art flamand et hollandais", 1925 (Vol. XXV), pp. 161184, p. 171 Vincent Vanhamme, Xavier Mellery: L'âme des choses, Amsterdam 2000, p. 21, p. 101, ill.
When the Belgian novelist Charles de Coster (1827-1879) introduced Mellery to the Dutch island Marken, it propelled his artistic output towards the naturalistic movement of the Belgian avant-garde. A fishermen's village frozen in time would cause a pivotal turn in the artist's career and provide content to be revisited over many decades to follow. Traditional costumes, based on sixteenth century fashion worn by the isolated islanders, contributed to capturing an idealized life, like Bruges and its Beguines would later. Although there is different garb for different seasons, for weddings and funerals, in general the clothing is egalitarian in that the entire community wears the same. Marken was a refuge for a nostalgic longing for the past, much desired in a time of ever progressing socialization and shifting of society in which there was no longer a place for tradition.1 Mellery elucidated about his experience in 1899: Charles de Coster ... invited me to illustrate his Isle of Marken, written for the Tour du Monde. I accepted his proposal and took my box of colors. De Coster, already ill, died during my stay in the island. I was very touched, for, although I had only known him for a short time, his narration of the island of Marken and the country he had made known to me had made me love him, and I should have wanted to see him again. I took some notes for the series of drawings he had asked for. I also made paintings, both of interiors and of the inhabitants. I spent more than two months on the island without leaving it. This island, situated at the end of the world, in the Zuiderzee, with its patriarchal manners, its interiors, and its most picturesque customs, gave me impressions of true joy which, though not profound, were indeed part of the domain of art.2 Although it is generally assumed that Mellery's stayed on Marken for a total length of two years as his painting Intérieur dans l’ile de Marken is dated 1878, a shorter stay of two months on the island in May 1879 as described above seems more plausible.
1 2
Hans Kraan, Dromen van Holland. Buitenlandse kunstenaars schilderen Holland 1800-1914, Zwolle 2002, pp. 186-187 Letter from Mellery, dated 14 November 1899, in: Jules du Jardin, Les artistes contemporains, Brussel 1900, pp. 58-66
It is unlikely that Mellery arrived in the Netherlands before De Coster since he follows the authors narration quite literally. De Coster's travelogue was posthumously published in 1880 in Le Tour du Monde, illustrated with seven engravings based on Mellery's drawings.3 Mellery rarely dated his work and therefore the publication establishes a timeline for the works that were most likely completed in situ on the island. That
Marken
remained
on
Mellery's mind is evident from later works that would continue to inhabit the isolated island.
Woodcut by Etienne Ronjat (1822-1912), engraved by Hildibrand, after Xavier Mellery, in: Le Tour du Monde, p. 133
3
Le Tour du Monde. Nouveau Journal des Voyages, Vol. 40, 1880, pp. 129-144
Mellery’s visit represented a turning point in his career: distancing himself from his academic training, he introduced ideas of social conditions, heredity and environment as inescapable forces in shaping human character. Portraying the inner life of things, the meditative silence, achieved through the use of a restricted palette, Mellery's mortals are elevated to enigmatic relics from another era. While the drawings made on the island closely follow De Coster's narrative, Mellery would continue to produce paintings and drawings exhibited at the salon Les XX in 1885 and throughout his career.4 These later drawings are more stylized with sometimes gold backgrounds evoking
Byzantine portraits and
embellished with formal titles like The Holy Family, recently acquired by The Rijksmuseum.
Xavier Mellery La Sainte Famille, Marken, c. 1889 Brush, chalk, and paint on cardboard 75.5 x 53 cm. Signed 'XM' 'Xavier Mellery' Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Object no. RP-T-2019-315
4
Gisèle Ollinger-Zinque a.o., Les XX & La Libre Esthétique. Cent ans après, Brussels 1993, p. 283
Mellery wasn't the only visitor to Marken, north of Amsterdam, in the late nineteenth century. As the secluded island evoked Holland's Golden Age and its national glorification, writers and plein air artists were soon followed by mass tourism. Everything typical Dutch appealed to the imagination of countless artists in the nineteenth century such as Turner, Monet, Picasso and Whistler. Although the point of departure may have been initially their seventeenth century predecessors, soon painters flocked to Marken, Volendam and many other communities appearing frozen in time. The contrast of the traditional idyllic lifestyle on the island with the developments of the industrial areas and its poor working condition towards the end of the nineteenth century especially appealed to artists concerned with the plight of farmers and laborer. While large colored drawings by Mellery rarely appear on the art market, the majority of drawings are small sketches, executed in black washes most likely after nature during his stay on the island. These sketches would become source material throughout his career, small scenes and tableaux later worked into imaginary compositions.
2
Xavier Mellery (1845-1921) Farm scene from Marken, circa 1879 Charcoal, pencil, and ink on paper 4 by 4¾ inches (10 by 11.8 cm.) Monogrammed 'XM'
Provenance Maurice Tzwern, Brussels, 2000 Private collection, New York
3 Xavier Mellery (1845-1921) Les Fiancés dans la Pronckamer (The Bride and Groom in the Pronkkamer), 1879 Watercolor, pastel, pen, ink and washes on board 297/8 by 183/4 inches (53 by 47.6 cm.) Signed 'X Mellery'
Provenance Mrs. Van der Aa, Brussels, by descent to Private collection, Belgium Eric Gillis Fine Art, Brussels, 2015 Private collection, United States Exhibited Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Les XX, 1885 Antwerp, Salon Kunst van Heden/L'Art Contemporain, 1922 Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Xavier Mellery, 16 October – 7 November 1937 Literature Jules Potvin, Xavier Mellery 1845-1921, Brussels 1925, p. 60 Arnold Goffin, "Xavier Mellery", in: La Revue d'art. Nouvelle série de l' "Art flamand et hollandais", 1925 (Vol. XXV), pp. 161184, pp. 175-176 Luc & Paul Haesaerts, Xavier Mellery, Brussels 1937, exh.cat., no. 170 Les XX Bruxelles. Catalogues des dix expositions annuelles, Brussels 1981, p. 54, no. g (Les Fiancés)
Another drawing made on Marken is this interior which was included in the Le Tour du Monde magazine. However, a painting with the same interior raises questions when the artist actually worked in The Netherlands. The painting, one of few dated works, is dated 1878, before Mellery is situated with certainty on the island. Could Mellery have visited on an earlier occasion then is generally assumed or did he predate the painting according to when the original idea was conceived? Because of the 1878 date, it is generally assumed that Mellery spent two years on Marken even if that is highly unlikely.5 As few of the Marken works are dated, it is difficult to establish a chronology. That said, Mellery revisited this body of work throughout the 1880s, refashioning his subjects more conceptual in spirit.
Woodcut by Etienne Ronjat (1822-1912), engraved by Barbana, after Mellery, in: Le Tour du Monde, p. 139
5
V. Vanhamme, Xavier Mellery: L'âme des choses, Amsterdam 2000, p. 19
Mellery’s painting Interior in Marken Island inhabits the same magical interior as the drawing. However, although the woman remains in the exact same position, her suitor has vanished from the painting, as have the cat and kittens in the foreground. While the drawing concerns the interaction between the couple, the focus of the painting is the solitary maiden. Void of the anecdotal detail of the kittens symbolizing their courtship, the unchaperoned sullen girl in the painting hints to longing or absence. As the alternative title for the painting is the Fiancée in the stateroom, the absence of the courter furnishes it more mysterious. While Mellery followed De Coster's chronicle closely at first in his drawings, it is in the later compositions from the 1880s that the artist's transforms his ideas into mysterious narrations with Marken as a magical mise en scene.
Xavier Mellery Intérieur dans l’ile de Marken (La fianceée dans la pronkkamer), 1878 Oil on canvas, laid down on panel, 65.5 x 48 cm. Signed & dated 'XMellery 1878' Musée des Beaux-Arts de Liège, Liège, Inv.no. 83
A mysterious drawing recently acquired by Musée d'Orsay reveals a dreamlike version of Marken where even a child seems immobilized by an oversized anchor. While the circle of little dancers may represent the path of existence, the boat on shore with its halo effect, underscores the girls' immobility.
Xavier Mellery Petite fille à Marken, c. 1883 Watercolor, pastel, ink and pen on paper 61.3 x 46 cm. Signed 'XMellery' Musée d'Orsay, Paris Inv.no. RF MO AG 2019 2
Anonymous postcard, c. 1900-1907 Zuiderzeemuseum, Enkhuizen Object no. F021369
4
Xavier Mellery (1845-1921) Triptyque (Marken triptych), c. 1882-1884 Chalk and ink on paper 10¼ by 13 inches (26 by 33.5 cm) 10¼ by 12¾ inches (26 by 32.5 cm) 10 by 13½ inches (25.3 by 34.5 cm) Signed 'X Mellery'
Provenance Galerie Patrick Derom, Brussels Private collection, Brussels Galerie Ronny van de Velde, Brussels, 2015 Private collection, New York Exhibited Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Xavier Mellery: De ziel der dingen, 14 April – 2 July 2000 Brussels, Musée d’Ixelles, Xavier Mellery: L’âme des choses, 27 July – 8 October 2000 Boston, McMullen Museum of Art, Nature's Mirror. Reality and Symbol in Belgian Landscape, 10 September - 10 December 2017, nos. 76 & 77 (the third drawing on the right omitted) Literature Vincent Vanhamme, Xavier Mellery. De ziel der dingen, Zwolle 2000, p. 103 ill. Jeffery Howe a.o., Nature's Mirror. Reality and Symbol in Belgian Landscape, Boston 2017, nos. 76-77, pp. 187-188
Mellery’s use of the triptych - the religious format par excellence - was a manner of sacralizing the art presented. Often used by his fellow symbolists, for secular subjects including landscapes, a trio certainly lending gravitas to even the smallest of drawings. Quick sketches of inhabitants on the island now populate a familiar interior in the first drawing. Although the cohesion between the three drawings is perhaps ambiguous, it does give a sense of the daily life at Marken. The monochrome black haze surrounding the composition, contributes to its mysterious and intuitive feeling that is the seed for the Symbolist movement.
Anonymous, postcard c. 1890-1902 Zuiderzee Museum, Enkhuizen Object no. F016396
5
Xavier Mellery (1845-1921) Interieur flamand, le tisserand (Flemish Interior. The Weaver), 1884 Crayon, ink and watercolor on paper 177/8 by 165/8 inches (45.5 by 42.5 cm.) Signed & dated 'XMellery 1884'
Provenance Camille Laurent, Charleroi, 1886 Adam and M. François, Brussels, 1937 Sale Galerie Georges Giroux, Brussels, 17 & 18 March 1939, lot 85 Private collection, Belgium Galerie Derom, Brussels, 2012 Private collection, United States Exhibited Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Xavier Mellery, 16 October – 7 November 1937 Literature Jules Potvin, Xavier Mellery 1845-1921, Brussels 1925, p. 61 Luc & Paul Haesaerts, Xavier Mellery, Brussels 1937, exh.cat., no. 129
The Weaver is a great example of Mellery’s moody realism. Portraying the inner life of things, the meditative silence, achieved through the use of a limited palette and subdued coloring, Mellery veils the mundane of this storefront as mysterious and poetic. The artist, peaking through the window from the outside, hints at a contemporary version of the Arnolfini portrait. The Arnolfinis were a wealthy Italian family, trading luxury fabrics in Bruges. The Italians, with their newer, larger galleys, had opened up the direct sea route through the Straits of Gibraltar and up the French coast to Flanders. This resulted in Bruges becoming a leading international port and bankers flocked to Flanders. Unfortunately, it was a boom that could not be sustained. As with its rise, numerous factors played a role in its fall. By the early fifteenth century, the industry had declined to a fraction of its former glory bringing the golden era of Flemish supremacy in cloth to an end.
Jan van Eyck, Arnolfini Portrait 1434
Could the weaver and his family be local substitutes since the wool market and weaving industry were at the center of Bruges’s prosperity in the time of Jan van Eyck? Referencing the long-lost mercantile profession in the 1880s, Mellery exudes the dissipation of social rigidity of the past, when wealth was reserved for those who were born into it, transported into a present-day household. By making the weavers the protagonists, Mellery’s Flanders conveys the inverse of the Arnolfini portrait. Like it's fifteenth century predecessor, Flemish Interior shows the artist's contemporaries engaged in a current interior, with both Mellery and Van Eyk as the perfect eye-witnesses at the center of it all.
A print of the child holding a toy in the walker after the drawing shows us the contraption to keep the youngster out of trouble. Baby walkers were known as early as the fifteenth century in the Low Countries, allowing mothers to do their work in the home. An illumination in The Hours of Catherine of Cleves, a Dutch manuscript from c. 1440 in the Morgan Museum & Library, New York, depicts the infant Jesus in a wooden walker with the Holy Family at work. Although it is unknown if Mellery was familiar with the Arnolfini portrait or medieval representations, Flemish Interior reminds us of the Child Jesus with the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph, the archetypal model for Christian families. Two sketches in pencil for The Weaver, in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, divulge Mellery's working method and the importance of preparatory drawings. The blue ink splatters suggest that the pencil drawings were kept nearby when Mellery labored over the final composition. The sketchy quick delineation of lines employed by the artist for the rendering of his models Auguste Danse (1829-1929), after Mellery Young girl, standing in a walker Etching and drypoint, third state 19.6 x 14 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, object no. RP-P-1909-3711
6
are transferred into a dark tranquility in the final composition.6
A woodcut by E. Ronjat, Intérieur de Tisserand, after the drawing was published in "La Belgique" in: Le Tour du Monde, 1884
Xavier Mellery Seated man Pencil on paper 204 x 117 mm. Monogrammed 'XM' The Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Brussels Inv.no. 4459-4
Xavier Mellery Woman with spinning wheel Pencil on paper 207 x 133 mm. Monogrammed 'XM' The Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Brussels Inv.no. 4459-2
6 Xavier Mellery (1845-1921) La Tricoteuse (Soir, effet de lampe) (The Knitter (Evening, lamp effect)), 1890 Black chalk and ink washes on paper 12¼ by 9 inches (31 by 23 cm.) Signed 'X Mellery'
Provenance Estate sale, Galerie Royale, Brussels, 18 & 19 December 1922, lot 118, ill. p. 15, sold for 3,100 fr. Jef Dillen, Brussels Mme J. Dillen, Brussels, by 1937 Jacques Schroeder, Brussels, 1988 Lancz Gallery, Brussels, 2000 Private collection, Belgium Eric Gillis Fine Art, Brussels, 2012 Private collection, New York Exhibited Brussels, Société royale belge des aquarellistes. Catalogue de la 57e exposition, 1921, no. 106 Antwerp, Kunst van Heden, 1922, no. 40 Paris, Exposition de l'art belge ancien et moderne, 1923, no. 70 Brussels, Palais des Beaux Arts, Retrospective Xavier Mellery, October - November 1937, no. 124, ill. Frankfurt, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Pastelle und Zeichnungen des belgischen Symbolismus, 7 May - 24 July 1988, cat.no. 135, p. 182 Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Xavier Mellery: De ziel der dingen, 14 April – 2 July 2000 Brussels, Musée d’Ixelles, Xavier Mellery: L’âme des choses, 27 July – 8 October 2000
Literature Jules Potvin, Xavier Mellery 1845-1921, Brussels 1925, ill., p. 65 Arnold Goffin, La Revue d'art. Nouvelle série de l' "Art flamand et hollandais", 1925, p. 163, ill. Franz Hellens, Xavier Mellery. Collection Peintres et Sculpteurs Belges, Brussels 1932, ill. cover, pp. 11-12 Katelijne Joris, Leven en werk van Xavier Mellery (1845-1921), Leuven 1982, unpublished thesis, cat.no. 61, fig. 52 Vincent Vanhamme, Xavier Mellery: L'Ame des choses, Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, 2000, p. 29, ill. p. 126
Starting around 1885, Mellery expresses his search for the deepest meaning of things in intimist drawings. Interiors of a chapel or the artist’s home or even an exterior: the encompassing subject matter progresses towards loneliness and silence. Living beings and their surroundings blend in, the intimate character of the scenery enhanced by the lack of use of color. Mellery aptly named these exertions Emotions d’Art: L’Âme des Choses (artistic emotions: the soul of things). Through the portrayal of artifacts, the magnetic suggestion of what lies behind them through the description of the outer appearance, the intimate meaning of the spectacle of life is revealed. With her inward gaze, alluding dreams and secrets, the knitter's home is a zone of transition to a reality residing behind the visible, behind the appearance of things.
7
Xavier Mellery (1845-1921) Church at Leersum, near Utrecht, c. 1889 Black and red chalk on paper 105/8 by 9 inches (27.5 by 23 cm.) Monogrammed 'XM'
Provenance Galerie Elstir, Paris, 2018
Church at Leersum is an example of Mellery's portrayal of a house of worship in typical monochrome moody realism. In an exaggerated palette, concealing the time of day, Mellery converts the ordinary church to an enigmatic haunt. The open gate summons the visitor into a magical place of devotion, while the general tendency at the time moved towards secularism. Exteriors in villages or the countryside, void of any human presence, reoccur in Mellery's drawings. Never dated or annotated, it is difficult to establish a chronology or the whereabouts of his frequent travels but the souls of the facades depicted certainly have the quality of an architectural portrait.
Jeanne Judith Dutilh (1717-1789) Village of Leersum, 1779, after an engraving of Paul van Liender 1755 Pen and pencil, 21.4 x 14.5 cm. The Utrecht Archives, cat.no. 200622
Xavier Mellery Bruges (3), mid 1800s-early 1900s Mixed media Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas Inv.nos. 1989.0069/0070/0071
8
Xavier Mellery (1845-1921) Méditation (Meditation), c. 1894 Pen and black ink, black chalk and wash on board 307/8 by 215/8 inches (78.5 by 55 cm.) Signed in red pencil ‘X Mellery’
Provenance Christie’s, London, 16 October 1990, lot 15 Galerie Moderne, Brussels, 24 May 2005, lot 424 Galerie Ronny van de Velde, Brussels, 2015 Private collection, United States Exhibited Herford, Germany, MARTa, MARTa schweigt. "Garde le silence, le silence te gardera". Die Kunst der Stille von Duchamp bis heute. Das Mysterium der Etrusker. [MARTa is silent. The Art of Silence from Duchamp to the present. The Mystery of the Etruscans], 2 June - 14 October 2007, curated by Jan Hoet Literature W. Brassat, a.o., MARTa schweigt. Die Kunst der Stille von Duchamp bis Heute, p. 163
The mysterious and reclusive life of the convent is recurrent in Belgian symbolist literature and Mellery’s work.7 For artists and writers of the turn of the century, entry into a religious order was a valid retreat from the inconsequential restlessness of life. In his 1889 Notes on Pessimism, Georges Rodenbach summarized a decadent stance: “It is necessary to practice renunciation, instead of delighting in things, become detached from them, and frozen in inaction awaiting the supreme promise, the immense peace of nothingness.”8 The peace of nothingness and the suspension of action emphasized by Rodenbach are evident in Mellery’s meditative monk. The spiritual servant becomes a figurative substitution for the symbolist artist engaged in a parallel quest for immanent divinity. Disengaged from worldly activities, the faceless friar’s existential being indicates silence, isolation, and waiting. Mellery certainly contributed to the renewed interest in the gothic sentiment by placing Méditation in the Onze Lieve Vrouwe van Goede Hoop (Church of Our Lady of Good Hope) in Vilvoorde, near Brussels, an eccentrically located pseudo-basilica.9 This church's beginnings date back to the fourteenth century, although the 1663 choir stalls depicting the Passion, faithfully depicted by Mellery, were a later addition, underscoring Vilvoorde position at the center of economic and strategic powers. By the 1860s however, the church was dilapidated and extensive restoration campaigns began. It is during this period when the church was decommissioned that Mellery's visit inspired Méditation. Mellery was possibly made aware of the church by his former teacher Jean-François Portaels (1818-1895), a Vilvoorde native. Portaels had contributed a twenty feet triptych to the church in 1852, reinstalled after the renovation in 1918 above the precious choir stalls.
Donald Friedman, in: Les XX and the Belgian Avant-Garde. Prints, Drawings, and Books c. 1890, Spencer Museum of Art, 1992, p. 284 Georges Rodenbach, “Notes sur le Pessimisme”, in: La société nouvelle, 1882, p. 208 9 Dr. Stefan Huygebaert of Ghent University kindly identified the church depicted. 7 8
Anonymous, photo c. 1900 Koninklijk Instituut voor Kunstpatrimonium (KIK) Object no. 45035
9 Xavier Mellery (1845-1921) Two Beguines, Bruges, c. 1890 Charcoal, pencil and ink on paper 91/8 by 111/2 inches (23.2 by 29.2 cm.) Monogrammed 'XM'
Provenance Galerie Maurice Tzvern, Brussels, 2000 Private collection, New York Exhibited Boston, McMullen Museum of Art, Nature's Mirror. Reality and Symbol in Belgian Landscape, 10 September - 10 December 2017, no. 78 Literature Jeffery Howe a.o., Nature's Mirror. Reality and Symbol in Belgian Landscape, Boston 2017, no. 78, p. 189
The meditative world of beguinages and church interiors, beloved by the Belgian symbolists, provided the perfect Gothic backdrop evoking the nation's power of past galore. At the same time, Belgian elites embraced the medieval-colored neogothic style to symbolize their power in newly founded Belgium. In a fast-changing modern world, Mellery's art is consumed by nostalgia for a preindustrial
past.
otherworldly
The beguine,
resurfacing in enigmatic dark drawings, is the opposite of a femme fatale. Instead, these somber sisters symbolize a life dedicated to serving all other living beings.
Xavier Mellery Beguines at Prayer, c. 1894 Ink on paper, 30.2 by 47.3 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York Object no. 291-1973
Rogier van der Weyden (c. 1400-1464) Portrait of an unknown woman, c. 1435-1440 Silverpoint on cream laid paper 16.6 by 11.6 cm The British Museum, London Museum no. 1874,080.2266
10 Xavier Mellery (1845-1921) Vieille béguine montant l'escallier (Old Beguine climbing the stairs), c. 1889 Charcoal, graphite, gouache & watercolor on paper 81/2 by 163/8 inches (21.4 by 16.1 cm.) Monogrammed 'XM'
Provenance Estate sale, Catalogue des tableaux, aquarelles, dessins et sculptures de Xavier Mellery, Galerie Royale, Brussels, 18 – 19 December 1922, lot 133 Collection Th. Heyndrickx His sale, Galerie Royale, Brussels, 17 May 1924, lot 63 Collection Odry, 1925 Lancz Gallery, Brussels, 2020 Exhibited Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Xavier Mellery, 16 October – 7 November 1937 Literature Jef Dillen, Atelier Xavier Mellery. Catalogue des tableaux, aquarelles, dessins et sculpture de Xavier Mellery, Brussels 1922, no. 133, p. 34 Arnold Goffin, "Xavier Mellery", in: La Revue d'art. Nouvelle série de l' "Art flamand et hollandais", 1925 (Vol. XXV), p. 173, ill. Franz Hellens, Xavier Mellery. Collection Peintres et Sculpteurs Belges, Brussels 1932, p. 12 Luc & Paul Haesaerts, Xavier Mellery, Brussels 1937, exh.cat., no. 125., ill. Katelijne Joris, Leven en werk van Xavier Mellery (1845-1921), Leuven 1982, unpublished thesis, cat.no. 72
La Religieuse brings together two of Mellery's favorite themes: the staircase and the beguine, the ideal combination to express The Soul of Things. Beguines, part of a larger spiritual revival movement of the thirteenth century in the Low Countries, lived a pious life. Throughout the sixteenth century, these single or widowed women lived in semi-monastic communities, without taking vows and free to leave. For Mellery, they were the perfect symbols of a life of silence and serenity, transporting us to the paintings of his Flemish predecessors. The staircase stands for another transition, for the sisters are always climbing up. Like doors, stairs represent access to hidden parts of the mind. As few works by Mellery are dated and themes reoccur, it is difficult to establish a chronology. La Religieuse most likely is a sketch executed by Mellery after a life model. The staircase still exists in the house he built on the same site as his family home, destroyed around 1897.10 Quick scribbles chronicling the laywoman are smoothed out in the larger, more finished drawing After the Evening Prayer from circa 1910 revealing a preparatory delineation emphasizing light. Even so, the strong strokes Xavier Mellery After the Evening Prayer, c. 1910 Chalk and watercolor on paper 99 x 69.5 cm. Museum of Ixelles, Brussels
10
capture the stillness and silence of a woman reflecting the fleeting of life.
Suzanne Houbart-Wilkin, in: Belgian Art 1880-1914, New York 1980, p. 123
11
Xavier Mellery (1845-1921) Le Pouvoir communal. Projet de decoration pour l’Hôtel-de-ville de Bruxelles, c. 1895 The municipal power. Decoration project for the City Hall of Brussels Watercolor, ink and pencil with gold paint 9 3/8 by 5 3/8 inches (23.8 by 13.7 cm.) Signed 'XMellery'
Provenance The artist's estate sale, Galerie Royale, Brussels, 18 & 19 December 1922, lot 55 Jef Dillen, Brussels The Piccadilly Gallery, London, c. 1982-1988 Maurice Tzwern, Brussels, 1993 Private collection, United States Exhibited London, The Piccadilly Gallery, Symbolist & Other Works by Belgian Artists, c. 1880-1940, 30 March - 30 April 1982, no. 50 Frankfurt, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Pastelle und Zeichnungen des belgischen Symbolismus, 7 May - 24 July 1988, cat.no. 128, p. 186 Literature Jules Potvin, Xavier Mellery 1845-1921, Brussels 1925, p. 72
During his last artistic phase, Mellery searched to create an allegorical art in which classically-inspired figures, set against flat, golden backdrops frequently accompanied by texts, expanded universal ideas or truths. Influenced by his visit to Italy in 1871 and a trip to Germany, Switzerland and Austria in 1887, they were generally conceived on a monumental scale for major public decorative cycles. Le Pouvoir communal, or Collective Power, is a preliminary design for an ambitious commission to decorate for Brussels's Palace of Justice, Europe’s biggest building project in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.11 Although the murals were never executed, this monumental allegorical art remained an important quest in his search for and perfecting of what Mellery called the modern synthesis. This gold-ground drawing is connected to the slightly larger drawing inscribed with The Law and the City of Brussels. While the cycle was never realized, Mellery did exhibit reduced versions in Brussels and at Sâr Péladan's sixth and final Salon de la Rose+Croix in 1897 in Paris. Given that these ambitious decoration schemes never came to fruition, Mellery withdrew from public life and returned to Laeken, his place of birth, where he died in 1921.
Xavier Mellery Le pouvoir communal/The City of Brussels – The Law c. 1903, ink and gold on paper, 27 x 15 cm. Private collection
11
Vincent Vanhamme, Xavier Mellery. De ziel der dingen, Amsterdam/Brussels, 2002, pp. 73-78
Xavier Mellery, Interieur Flamand (detail), cat.no. 5
+1917.362.5585 | info@mireillemosler.com | www.mireillemosler.com
Mireille Mosler, Ltd.