Coppice at Sint-Martens-Latem

Albijn Van den Abeele was from 1863 to 1909 town clerk and for a short time also mayor of Sint-Martens-Latem, the village where various artists such as Valerius De Saedeleer and Gustave Van de Woestyne came to live around 1899. Van den Abeele was an amateur painter and the spiritual atmosphere of the painters’ colony is expressed in some of…

Albijn Van den Abeele was from 1863 to 1909 town clerk and for a short time also mayor of Sint-Martens-Latem, the village where various artists such as Valerius De Saedeleer and Gustave Van de Woestyne came to live around 1899. Van den Abeele was an amateur painter and the spiritual atmosphere of the painters’ colony is expressed in some of his work. Coppice at Sint-Martens-Latem is a good example of the unpretentious and poetic nature of his art. It is one of a series of woodland scenes in which he depicts the seclusion of the wood. Through his highly personal, sensitive approach to nature, Van den Abeele’s seemingly realistic landscapes acquire an almost symbolic character.