Kneeling Youth with Outstretched Feet, ca. 1898

After a period of poverty during his stay in Ghent, Minne moved to Brussels in October 1895. As a sculptor, he underwent an important evolution in his Brussels period up until 1899 - the year that he left the city to settle in Sint-Martens-Latem. In the first years he created both expressive sculptures and more contemplative figures. Around 1897 a new, more classical style phase began. The type figures of kneeling, mourning or injured figures from his earlier work underwent a process of purification and abstraction. The images become more and more stylised and refined. For instance, the body of The Kneeling Youth, Minne’s best-known sculpture, of which five identical copies were erected around a water basin, is composed of a controlled rhythm of straight or curved lines and planes (inv. 1982-E). The modesty of the kneeling figure is underlined by a subtly modelled surface. The entire sculpture forms a graceful and expressive silhouette that lends itself perfectly to grouping it around a circular basin. There are two versions of The Fountain of Kneeling Youths. One shows the kneeler with an extended foot, as on the fountain that was shown in 1899 at La Libre Esthétique and in 1900 at the Wiener Secession. Only a few copies of that version are still known, and it is this version that the museum recently acquired. With the Fountain with Kneeling Youths, the museum owns since 1982 five examples of the youth in the better-known pose, with the feet folded around a pedestal that is slightly curved at the front to fit the edge of the fountain. With the sculpture group, Minne reached the conclusion of his many years of research, which can be followed in the various preparatory drawings and sketchbooks, in which he tried out certain poses and combinations, and in which he grouped elegant figures, both standing and kneeling, around a basin and set them up in imaginary architectural settings. With the acquisition of the first version of the Fountain with Kneeling Youths and study sheets (cf. 1982-I-02 & -06 / 1985-M-2-recto & -3-recto / 2007-recto), the museum now owns a series of works that illustrate the various lines of thought of Minne during the development process of The Fountain of Kneeling Youths.