Léon Spilliaert

Book excerpt: The first publication in English of the ultimate monograph on painter Léon Spilliaert. Léon Spilliaert (1881-1946) was one of the most important Flemish Symbolist painters. Although he was embedded in the Symbolist tradition, he was also drawn to the avant-garde. He was, in fact, an einzelgänger, or loner, balancing on the fault line between two centuries, a transitional figure between Symbolism and Surrealism. Spilliaert, like James Ensor, was born and raised in Ostend. And like Ensor, he was also driven by ridicule and irony, non-conformism and the urge to look at the world from a different perspective. He created his own spiritual imagery, experimented with pastel and gouache, and played with purified areas of colour and graceful lines. The sea under a cool moon, lonely figures with a vacant gaze, desolate beaches, empty rooms and stylised silhouettes in backlight: Spilliaert was always able to evoke an atmosphere of mystery, magic and alienation in abstract lines and colours. This revised, English-language version of the ultimate Spilliaert book will be published to coincide with the major Spilliaert exhibition at the Royal Academy in London this autumn.