Jean Pierre François Lamorinière, Moer near Putte, 1882

by Atelier Liesjes

A shallow stretch of water extends to a fine, low horizon. The water is almost like a mirror: it reflects the colours of the sky and, here and there, reveals the bottom, with tufts of grass and dark patches of mud. In the foreground on the right lies a flat wooden boat with a small cabin, moored to a post jutting out at an angle from the water; on the bow stands a heron, motionless. On the horizon to the left, pale dunes rise up, whilst to the right a village with a small church tower comes into view. Above it hangs a vast sky of grey, creamy white and, here and there, a patch of blue. Along the left-hand edge, a channel runs inland, flanked by tufts of grass and a few stones. It is a landscape of water and sky, in which the land barely features. Lamorinière has painted the clouds with great variety: heavy banks above, a lighter veil around the centre, and the occasional gap through which the light filters. The water reflects all this in a cool, silvery grey-green. The boat and the heron are the only signs of life and lend a sense of scale to the vastness. The mood is one of emptiness and tranquillity, like a marsh on a windless afternoon. The horizon is so low that the canvas almost appears to be one vast expanse of water, with the sky above it forming a second plane. The painter (Antwerp 1828 – Antwerp 1911) would travel to the marshy lands around Putte to paint scenes of this kind, where he could study the vast skies of the Kempen. He studied the cloudy sky with the same seriousness as the landscape, because he knew that space arises from it. His work from these years is characterised by a cool, almost silvery colour scheme. A spacious, cool work that lifts a small room.