Jean-Baptiste Degreef, St Anne’s Chapel in Oudergem, 1885

by Atelier Liesjes

In the middle of a wide, green field stands a small, old church with a square tower. The tower is built of grey-brown stone, touched up here and there with plaster, and is topped by a low, tapering slate roof with a wrought-iron cross at its peak. A small wooden shed is attached to the base of the tower; to the right, the nave extends towards the rear, with a heavy slate roof and buttresses. To the left are low houses with red-tiled roofs set amongst the greenery. In the foreground stretches a large field of low-growing crops, painted in broad, sweeping strokes of sage green, moss green and ochre. Two small figures are working in the field; one of them is bent low over the earth. The sky takes up more than half the canvas: a high, pearly-grey cloud cover with a faint warm glow, against which the tower stands like a dark wedge. Degreef painted with a loose, almost Impressionist touch and a restrained palette of green, grey and brick red; the buildings are rendered with short, angular strokes, the field with longer brushstrokes. The scene is simple and everyday, but the low horizon and the vast sky lend it a sense of solemnity. As such, this work belongs to the realist landscape painting of the nineteenth century, in which the Brabant countryside around Brussels is imbued with its own understated beauty. Jean-Baptiste Degreef was a Belgian landscape painter who worked in the Brussels area and sought his subjects in the villages, fields and woods of Brabant. He preferred to paint outdoors, in the open air, and remained true to a simple, direct observation of light and the changing seasons. His work is classified as Realism and follows in the tradition of the Belgian landscape painters who captured the countryside around the capital. This chapel near Oudergem is a fine example of this. A tranquil, rural work suited to a classical interior.