Hippolyte Boulenger – The Ponds at the Grey Mill in Terhulpen, 1867

by Atelier Liesjes

A wide stretch of water lies between the woodland and the meadow, and above that water stretches a sky that takes up almost as much space as the land. Heavy cumulus clouds are piling up, with bright white tops, pearly-grey sides and the occasional streak of blue-green in between. The water reflects it all: the pale white of the clouds, the dark edge of the woodland, a patch of blue. To the right stands a dense forest edge in its autumnal finery, with brown, olive-green and rust-yellow leaves, and a few tall trees standing out from the mass. To the left, the bank opens out onto a wet meadow, where some cattle graze in the distance. In the foreground lies a marshy strip with tufts of grass and rust-brown reeds. Boulenger painted this landscape in Terhulpen, near the ponds of the Grijze Molen, a place he visited countless times. He preferred to work outdoors, in the open air, and this is evident: the clouds are not composed but observed; the light is that of a cloudy, damp day when the sky could change at any moment.
The colours are those of late summer: silvery white, grey-blue, olive green, rust-brown and warm umber. The style is realism in the tradition of the School of Tervuren and the School of Barbizon: no romantic idealisation, but an honest, melancholic view of the Belgian countryside. The theme is the interplay between water, air and the seasons; the feeling the work evokes is one of space, silence and a slight sense of foreboding.
Hippolyte Boulenger (Tournai 1837 – Brussels 1874) was a Belgian landscape painter and the leading representative of the School of Tervuren, which continued the Barbizon tradition of realistic painting from life in the open air. He is regarded as a forerunner of Impressionism in Belgium.
A beautiful, atmospheric nineteenth-century landscape, perfect for a quiet, spacious wall.