Early Morning, 1907

The painter Heymans lived several artistic lives. Inspired by the realistic landscape tradition, he retreated to the countryside in the Kempen. In the course of the 1880s, he, too, came under the influence of impressionism, and even flirted briefly with neo-impressionism. On the official side, Heymans was a much-praised painter and a welcome guest at the official salons. He also exhibited at Les XX, though only once at the opening exhibition of the circle in 1884. Together with Claus, he was considered during his lifetime as one of the protagonists of Belgian luminism. Despite his secluded existence in the Kempen region, he exerted a far-reaching influence on young artists, including Henry van de Velde. The painting Early Morning is a reworking of a theme that he had touched upon decades earlier in his realistic years. In the 1907 version, which differs compositionally from the old one, pastel shades predominate, with soft purples suggesting the beginning of the day. The idyllic courtyard, the seated farmer and the few scurrying chickens provide a particularly fine image of rural life in the north-east of Flanders. Heymans was first and foremost an observer, who orchestrated his luministic compositions on the basis of observation. In Early Morning, the idyllic loveliness of the courtyard was given a refined aura. On the occasion of the retrospective exhibition at the Georges Giroux Gallery, the art critic Karel van de Woestijne emphasised not only the artist's accurate hand, but also Heymans' enlarged and spiritualised sense of nature (Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 19 February 1922). Heymans exhibited the monumental painting at La Libre Esthétique in 1908 (n°106) and at the Salon in Brussels in 1910 (n°199).