Constantin Émile Meunier

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In My Opinion

He was a devoted religious artist, who themed his works with his beliefs. He made monuments to the common man and worker showing their humanity and dignity.

Themed Works

(Etterbeek, 1831 - Ixelles, 1905) Belgian painter and sculptor. A multi-faceted artist in a realistic style, he trained in official academies and private studies in Brussels, and devoted himself to religious and historical painting. In the eighties of the nineteenth century he became interested in the world of the worker, a theme that inspired several paintings and sculptures.

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Return To Brussels

Upon returning to Brussels he began his first sculptures, such as El pudelador (1885). He showed special attention to the world of mining, with works such as The Old Horse from the Coal Mine , The Blast of Gray Dump (1887, about a real tragedy), The Women of the Miners or The Return of the Miners . He worked almost exclusively in bronze, giving his figures of workers an awareness of their humanity and dignity.

Professorship

In 1887 he was appointed professor of the Academy of Leuven and then of the one of Brussels. Then began a set of austere sculptures dedicated to work that he wanted to call Monument to Work . The whole was left unfinished, since it only made four reliefs ( Industry , Harvest , Port and Mine ) crowned with four allusive figures ( The Blacksmith , The Sower , The Ancestor and The Miner ); the monument was installed much later, in 1930, in the Trooz square in Brussels.

Accomplishments

In 1896 he presented a retrospective exhibition of his work at the Art Noevau Gallery in Paris, with the help of Henry Van de Velde . It was then well received in Germany and Austria. Elected member of the Royal Academy of Belgium (1900), he received several prizes as a painter (bronze medal in the Universal Exhibition of 1889) and as a sculptor (grand prize in the universal exhibitions of 1889 and 1900, officer of the Order of Leopold and Knight of the Legion of Honor in 1889). His house in Brussels was established as a museum since 1900, a few years before his death, which came to him while he was making a sculptural group entitled Fecundidad , in honor of the writer Émile Zola . His work exerted an important influence on contemporary art.

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