Histoire croisée and cross fertilisation between Belgium and Great-Britain: Laurence Binyon, Olivier Destrée, their networks and periodicals, 1890-1930 (FWOAL547)

Research into the cultural exchanges between Belgian culture and that of the neighbouring countries at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century has so far mainly focused on the relations between artists and authors with their colleagues in the Netherlands and France (Hoozee, Frickx, Quaghebeur). More recently more attention has been paid to the way in which British art and literature influenced the Belgian and Dutch cultural scene: research by Ellen van Impe about the influence of Arts and Crafts on the Flemish-Catholic renaissance of the fin-de-siècle, the influence of Pre-Raphaelite art on Les XX (Brogniez) and the reception of PreRaphaelite art and literature in the Netherlands and Flanders (Van Gent, Tibbe, Laanstra) are recent contributions to research. The above publications are, however, fragmentary, little or no attention goes to the direction of the influence and hardly none to the reverse direction. An exception to the last is catalogue Art in Exile. Flanders, Wales and the First World War (2002). Research into the cultural exchange between Belgium and Britain is almost non-existent on the other side of the channel. There has been some interest in the influence of the Flemish primitives on the work of the Pre-Raphaelites and the arts and crafts movement by influential experts, but that was limited, certainly when compared to the research focusing on the influence of the Italian art on the British cultural scene (Casteras en Faxon). De promoter has addressed this particular theme in a number of publications about the perception of Flemish art in the Victorian age (see e.g. Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies 2005), but the period 1890-1930, when the exchange reaches its acme, remains a fairly untouched field. Previous research has demonstrated that quite a number of English artists travelled to the Flemish 'medieval' towns to study their cultural riches and use that as a basis of their own artistic endeavour. William Morris is an excellent example. His socialist ideology, his romantic nostalgia for the middle ages and his admiration for the medieval artisan led him to scrutinise the Flemish Medieval manuscripts and reproduce them in his own press. Apart from that he studied the Flemish stained-glass windows and medieval texts and copied the medieval techniques to create a Victorian version. But also the Belgian fin de siècle artistic scene was well-known in Great-Britain. Towards the end of the nineteenth century the work of Félicien Rops, Fernand Khnoppf and Constantin Meunier came in for special admiration. Writers such as Maeterlinck were lionized and this gave rise to the expression of a 'mirage flamand' (Dyserinck). Via the work of Georges Rodenbach new myths, such as that of the dead town, entered English literature (Friedman). The spread of the fame of the Belgian artists and writers in Britain was the result of a well-functioning network.

Keywords:taal

Disciplines:Languages and literary studies