Oil On Cardboard, House By The River By Alfred Bastien

Alfred BASTIEN (1873-1955)

Belgian painter of landscapes, still lifes and portraits, compositions with characters. Post-impressionist.

His works, focused on the effects of light in natural landscapes, are directly inspired by his masters, Delacroix and Courbet. A desire of many Belgian artists to come together around a new painting, freer, more impressionist, more symbolist. She will influence a whole future generation of painters, like Alfred Bastien.

Bastien learns to master light during his travels to Morocco and Algeria. His practice of the outdoors and his taste for “sketching” will also be carried out in the trenches. Returning from the war, he devoted himself to painting, particularly landscape painting, but also to teaching. From 1927 to 1945 he was an “outdoor professor” at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels.

With Bastien, it is not the drawing that makes the work, but the color and the light. The only priority is the emotion given to the viewer, through a touch of lively color with blurred contours.