Louis Dubois (painter)


Louis Dubois was a Belgian painter who specialized in landscapes and Portraits in a naturalistic style. He also painted genre and still-life subjects.

Personal life

Louis Dubois was born in 1830 in Brussels, Belgium. He died of a respiratory illness in Brussels in 1880 at the age of 50.

Free Society for the Fine Arts

Louis Dubois belonged to a group of artists who, in the style of the second half the 19th century, rebelled against the traditional painting of the past in favor of the style of this period. With the painters Théodore Baron, Louis Artan, Edmond Lambrichs, F. Foudin, on 1 March 1868, he became one of the founders of La Société Libre des Beaux-Arts.
The society was officially established in 1868 as "Comité de Salut Public révolutionnaire, pour la libération de l'Art" according to Lucien Solvay. The society members scorned the rules of the Academy and the aesthetics currently accepted; the artists of the "Free Society for the Fine Arts" freely and uniquely interpreted nature and reality, without following a common discipline, and stated their motto: "Liberté et Sincerité" and thus started a vehement controversy.
To make known and spread their realist philosophy, in 1871 they created "L'Art Libre" an art and literary journal under Leon Dommartin's direction; it was published on the 1st and 15th of each month.
Louis Dubois, as the principal illustrator and the only painter-editor, was the most argumentative.
Under the pseudonym "Hout", in his alert, precise style, Dubois criticized traditional painting in his stories. In his well-respected lampoons, he spoke from the perspective of good sense, logic, sincerity, truth.

Criticism

On 1 January 1872, Duboi published under the title "Les Biographes et les Biographies" a critique of his professional enemies, The Romantics of the school of 1830.
Dubois is also given credit for the articles signed "Karl Stur," in "L'Art Libre" and in the daily newspaper "La Chronique", during the years 1870–1871.

Paintings

Dubois worked in Paris at Thomas Couture's studio, which was active from 1847 to 1863. He also found himself in the company of Félicien Rops, Charles Hermans, Constantin Meunier, Jules Raeymaeckers, among the attendees of the "Atelier Libre Saint-Luc" in Brussels from 1853 to 1863, then directed by Slingeneyer – an association of young painters gathered to work together.
Dubois exhibited for the first time at the Brussels Exhibition of 1857 where he showed three paintings "Joueurs", "Embuscade", and "Prêtre allant célébrer la Masse".
At an 1860 show, Dubois showed the great work "Les Cigognes", painted in 1858, "La Roulette" and a study called "Enfant de choeur" ; in 1863 "Solitude" shows the dead animal outstretched in the middle of a silent forest.

Associates

Dubois considered as his friends: Courbet, Louis Artan, Félicien Rops, Constantin Meunier, Alfred Verwee, Joseph Coosemans. Alfred Verhaeren, Jean-François Taelemans, and Théodore Baron were his students, and Frans Van Leemputten followed his influence.
Camille Lemonnier wrote: "Master Louis Dubois, I saved him for last, like a hot pepper for a bored palate. Zounds! What painting! I recognized the power of another with distinction." Edmond About said about him, "he was the most distinguished painter working in Belgium."

Legacy

Twenty-one of Dubois' paintings and those of his students were displayed at the 1880 Brussels Artistic and Literary Circle; and in 1891 at the Arts and Press Expo.
His works were also displayed at the
  • 1905 Belgian Art Retrospective in Brussels
  • 1906 at the Belgian Art Exhibition at Guild Hall in London
  • 1907 Belgium Autumn Art Show in Paris
  • 1910 Brussels Show: The Free Aesthetic Evolution of a Landscape
  • 1920, at Anvers: Chosen Work of the Belgian Masters
  • 1922 Brussels Artistic and Literary Circle
  • 1923 Belgian Art Show, in Paris
  • 1926 Belgian Art Show, in Bern
  • 1927 Belgian Art Show, in London
  • 1930, at the Centennial Art Expo of Belgian Art in Brussels, at the Third Salon at Namur,
  • 1931, at the Belgian Art Show in Copenhagen
  • Belgian Art Show at Expo of the Century
  • Expo of Women's Portraits in Brussels,
  • 1932, at the Brussels Fine Arts Palace, Retrospective of the Masters of La Societe Libre des Beaux-Arts, Artan, Dubois, De Grouz, Verwee, Meunier, Rops, Baron, Smits
  • 1935 Brussels Universal and International Expo, "Five Centuries of Art".
The Brussels Museum has 15 of Dubois' works on display, the Ixelles Fine Arts Museum displays five paintings, the Charlier-Van Custen Museum displays three paintings, the Gand Fine Arts Museum displays three works, the Tournai Fine Arts Museum displays works.
The Ostende Fine Arts Museum displayed three of his paintings, but they were destroyed during World War II,