Vertigo

Belgian Symbolist Léon Spilliaert was an artist whose gloomy and mysterious early style is easy to recognise once you’ve seen a couple of his pictures. Spilliaert grew up in Ostend so the Belgian coast dominates his pastels which renounce sunlit beach scenes in favour of windswept vistas. The Impressionists flocked to the coast to paint fluffy clouds and waves and parasols; Spilliaert gives us monochrome shades and oppressively empty views. A prolific doodler and autodidact, he was predominantly a self-taught artist. Sickly and reclusive, he spent most of his youth sketching scenes of ordinary life and the Belgian countryside. When he was 21, he went to work in Brussels for Edmond Deman, a publisher of the works of symbolist writers, which Spilliaert was to illustrate. He especially admired the work of Edgar Allan Poe. At first glance the haunting black-and-white landscapes of Léon Spilliaert resemble abstract works of art. In Vertigo the hooded female echoes symbolist imagery of vampires, witches and femme fatales. Will she fall or throw herself into the dark void that awaits her under the steeply plunging steps? I wish I could find more info in English about Spilliaert, it seems to me that he is very underestimated artist in the art world :(

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