Lys Landscape at Dusk
Oil on canvas
100 x 100 cm
Signed and dated 1911
Bernard de Maere’s symbolist landscape is imbued with a rich and complex emotion. A horse grazes under a bright full moon, within a large open plain. The trees, while elegant and beautiful, have a looming and anthropomorphic quality. Inside a caravan there is a bright warm light from a smoking fire; smoke puffs from it's chimney. There is a warmth and peaceful comfort to the scene but mixed with it an eerie, uncanniness. This mysterious and ambivalent feeling characterises a lot of Symbolist painting, particularly landscapes - and within it lies a quiet spiritually and acceptance of the unknown.
The white horse is rich with symbology, often associated with purity and grace it can also symbolise both spirituality and death. De Maere is likely looking at Gauguin, a pioneer of Symbolist painting, White Horse in 1898.
There is further depth to the emotion in the scene as later in the same decade it was painted this quiet landscape would be the site of warfare, a large amount of fighting taking place on the Lys and in Belgium, notably the Battle of the Lys in 1918.
Not a huge amount is known about De Maere, however he was clearly held in high esteem as examples of his work are in the collections of the Musee de Beaux Arts Reims, Musea Sint-Niklaas and Musea Brugge. Painted at the age 26 this work shows both his great skill as a painter but also his emotional sensitivity and deep understanding of both the power and subtlety of Symbolist painting.
