Maleperduys
Artist / maker
Frits van den Berghe (painters (artists))Date
1920Period
20th centuryCollection
Museum of Fine Arts Ghent
In 1920, Frits Van den Berghe lived for a short time with Gustave De Smet in Blaricum, a village east of Amsterdam. The house that De Smet and his wife lived in was called ‘Malpertuus’. The name Malpertuus, or Malpertuis, was already known in the Middle Ages, in particular as the castle of Reynard the Fox. Later, a great many…
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In 1920, Frits Van den Berghe lived for a short time with Gustave De Smet in Blaricum, a village east of Amsterdam. The house that De Smet and his wife lived in was called ‘Malpertuus’. The name Malpertuus, or Malpertuis, was already known in the Middle Ages, in particular as the castle of Reynard the Fox. Later, a great many inns received the name. The word quickly became a synonym for a welcoming place of refuge and it is therefore very appropriate for the house in which De Smet lived as an exile during WWI. In this picture, we see Gustave and Gusta De Smet by a table which forms the centre of a symmetrically built up composition. The colour is subordinate to the arrangement of the forms and is accentuated here and there with meticulously applied coloured accents that enliven the sombre, night like atmosphere. Van den Berghe did not paint this work using heavy paint materials, as usual, but with a thin tempera, so that the drawn forms are more visible. The work illustrates his evolution towards constructive expressionism in which the influence of French cubism is more obviously apparent.
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