Eugene Laermans (1864-1940). "return From The Fields". Around 1900.

Period wooden frame with dark patina, white passe-partout (usual wear). Frame dimensions: 41 x 48 cm.
Dimensions of the drawing: 26 x 34 cm. Signed EL.
The sheet is free, not glued.
Eugène Laermans is a Belgian painter, draftsman and etcher of genre and historical scenes. At the age of eleven, he contracted meningitis which left him deaf and almost dumb. Laermans took lessons at the Drawing Academy of Molenbeek-Saint-Jean from 1876 to 1882 then at the Brussels Academy with Jean-François Portaels and Constant Montald. Until 1900, he attended the Free Academy of “La Patte de Dindon”. From 1891, he exhibited in the group “Voorwaarts”, in the group “Pour l'Art” and in the circle of “La Libre Esthétique”. He took part in numerous national and international exhibitions, including those of the Viennese Secession of 1898 and 1899. The artist drew his subjects from the working and peasant world, which he depicted with an often pathetic and pessimistic sense. He is the champion of the life of the humble. If he therefore passes for a defender of the social problems of his time, it is essentially for the artist to express the human condition as he felt it and as it offers itself as a support for his own plastic language. In an initially realistic style in the tradition of Charles De Groux and Constantin Meunier, he painted scenes of popular life (The Old Gardener, 1890, Brussels MRBAB) or of clearly literary inspiration. During his career, he gave his work more breadth by ridding it of any anecdotal character and granting greater importance to the purely aesthetic values of the image: stripping of the decor, advanced stylization of the characters with silhouettes à la Bruegel, sober rhythm of the composition, obtained in particular by cold colors distributed in large contrasting planes (important white). By such characteristics, his clearly expressive work opens the way to Flemish expressionism (Le mort, 1904, Brussels, RMFAB). After 1900, however, appears in his works a certain joy with themes such as bathing. In 1927, the artist received the title of baron. Eugène stopped all artistic activity in 1924 due to his sight problems. A major retrospective was devoted to him at the Galerie Giroux in 1925 and the same year he was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium.