(b Leuven, 19 Jan 1867; d Brussels, 19
Jan 1953).
Belgian painter, decorative artist and writer. He
studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, Brussels,
with Jean-François Portaels and the Belgian painter
Joseph Stallaert (1825–1903). Among his fellow students
were Eugène Laermans, Victor Rousseau and Victor Horta.
From 1887 he exhibited at L’Essor, where in 1888
Mother (untraced), which depicts a woman writhing in
labour, caused a scandal. Although his drawings of the
metallurgists working in the Cockerill factories near
Charleroi were naturalistic, from 1887 he veered towards
Symbolism: the drawing of Tristan and Isolde
(1887; Brussels, Musées Royaux B.-A.), in its lyrical
fusion of the two bodies, reveals the influence of
Richard Wagner. Circle of the Passions (1889),
inspired by Dante Alighieri’s Divina commedia,
was burnt c. 1914; only drawings remain
(Brussels, Musées Royaux B.-A.). Jef Lambeaux copied it
for his relief Human Passions (1890–1900;
Brussels, Parc Cinquantenaire). Delville became
associated with Joséphin Péladan, went to live in Paris
and exhibited at the Salons de la Rose+Croix, created
there by Péladan (1892–5). A devoted disciple of Péladan,
he had his tragedies performed in Brussels and in 1895
painted his portrait (untraced). He exhibited Dead
Orpheus (1893; Brussels, Gillion-Crowet priv. col.),
an idealized head, floating on his lyre towards
reincarnation, and Angel of Splendour (1894;
Brussels, Gillion-Crowet priv. col.), a painting of
great subtlety. |
