UK Britain, Anarchist Federation ORGANISE! #84 - Theo Van Rysselberghe - Organise! looks at his life.

(en) UK  Britain, Anarchist Federation ORGANISE! #84 - Theo Van
Rysselberghe - Organise! looks at his life.

Theo Van Rysselberg was one of the many artists who rallied to the anarchist cause in the 
late 19th century. ---- Theodore Van Rysselberghe was born on November 28th 1862 in Ghent, 
Belgium, to a wealthy family. He studied painting at schools of fine arts in first Ghent 
and then Brussels. In 1884, he travelled to Spain and Morocco which opened his eyes to the 
need to depict light in his paintings. ---- Returning to Belgium, he helped found the 
Group of Twenty, whose secretary was Octave Maus. This group wanted to increase links 
between Belgian and French artists and to fight for an “intransigent art” and a 
‹›conscious and organized insurrection against academicism «. This went well with Theo’s 
independent spirit and his dislike of establishment artists. ---- He was a friend of the 
socialist poet Emile Verhaeren. One day in 1886 Verhaeren told him to come down to Paris 
to see the painting in the new divisionist/pointillist style by Georges
Seurat, Un Dimanche Après-midi à l›Ile de
la Grande-Jatte [A Sunday Afternoon on the
Island of the Grande-Jatte]. He was so affected
by the painting that he broke his cane in half!

He determined that he would now paint in the
new style. He made contact with other painters
like Paul Signac, Camille Pissarro, Maximilen
Luce, Henri-Edmond Cross, and Charles Angrand.
All of these had strong anarchist convictions
and contributed both financially and artistically to
the French anarchist press. Van Rysselberghe’s
rebellious temperament was attracted to
these ideas and he too became an anarchist.

Another of Theo’s friends was the art critic
Félix Fénéon, also extremely active in the
anarchist movement. Fénéon introduced
Theo to the group of Symbolist writers
In 1892 Theo gave money for a fund for the children
of an imprisoned French anarchist. After the wave
of repression against anarchists in France in 1894,
many fled to Belgium, including Camille Pissaro, the
geographer Elisée Reclus, and the writer Bernard
Lazare. Pissaro wrote that: «Theo is really charming
with us and does everything to make the time enjoyable
for us.» Pissaro and Van Rysselberghe painted
together in Bruges and Knokke. It should be noted that
Pissaro was beginning to move away from divisionist
techniques that he regarded as too cold and clinical,
something which Van Rysselberghe was to do later.

Theo was a friend of the anarchist activist Jean
Grave and he supported Grave’s call for artists
and writers to involve themselves actively in the
anarchist cause. He supported Grave’s newspaper
Les Temps Nouveaux (New Times). The dilemma of
the committed artist is highlighted here. He was to
write to Grave that whilst he was keen on providing
works, he could not supply drawings on demand. He
was to again write to Grave in 1905 that: ”As much
as I would like the pleasure of sometimes giving you
a drawing — without any connection to any text, nor
even with the philosophical or social ideas of the
journal — it would be difficult to make one to fit your
purposes. A drawing finds sufficient cause in its purely
graphic interest, and that if it has value (as a graphic),
it will even have an educational role, perhaps even
better than a drawing with literary or philosophical
meaning. Whatever the meaning might be, I am
particularly inept at that kind of drawing: Everything
I have tried to do has given me too much trouble,
and to my eyes has been a complete botch-up.”

Nevertheless Theo provided a series of designs,
Les Errants (The Wanderers) for Grave’s articles on
the homeless. He was also to illustrate a pamphlet
by the anarchist thinker Kropotkin on Anarchist
Morality and to provide illustrations to Grave’s
novel for children on the future society Les
Aventures de Nono (1901). He also offered his
works as prizes for fundraising raffles organised
by Les Temps Nouveaux in 1899, 1900, 1908, and
1912, also presenting three water colours in 1909.

In 1898 Theo moved to Paris where he deepened
his contacts with the Symbolist writers. By now Theo
was himself moving away from divisionist techniques
and his long and close friendship with Signac
suffered as a result, especially when he moved to a
classicist style which resulted in a final break in 1909.

Theo moved to Saint Clair on the Côte d›Azur in the
south of France in 1911. There he built a house with
his brother Octave and fellow painter and anarchist
Henri-Edmond Cross. Division had been replaced
by a freer use of brush strokes coupled with a more
pronounced emphasis on light and weather conditions.

He died on December 13, 1926.

Fénéon wrote that his friend’s greatest wish had
been to live in a caravan, put on travelling exhibitions,
and once successful, to burn all his paintings, to
avoid speculation by art collectors. Ironically, most
of his works are now in private collectors’ hands.