Still Life with a Globe

During the 1920s, Gustave Van de Woestyne transformed the influences of cubism and expressionism into a personal compromise. The artist’s style is determined by an explicit desire for synthesis whereby forms are strictly simplified without a fear of deformation. As a consequence, his work from the post war period is often associated with the neo-realism of the Neue Sachlichkeit in Germany. However, his work retained a certain meditative character, full of symbolism and wonder, even betraying, around 1930, certain surrealist intentions. In the paintings depicted here, Van de Woestyne brings together several elements from everyday civilian existence. He uses the gouache technique, which modernist artists of the 1920s tended to favour. Like 'Still life with Cineraria' (inv. 2004-H), 'Still Life with a Globe' was created in the early 1920s. Both can be situated in the context of the Sélection movement and the activities of the Le Centaure gallery in Brussels, already represented in the collection of the museum by gouaches by Frits van Van den Berghe and Ossip Zadkine. Van de Woestyne's gouaches used to belong to the De Sutter collection, an important patron of the artist.