Gustave de Smet (1877-1943)

Le Centaure, Brussels (1932)
J. van Parijs, Brussels
Sale Christie's London, 20 October 1988, lot 89
David Hugues, London
Sale Christie's Amsterdam, 12 October 1999, lot 132, thence to the present owner

P. Haesaerts, Laethem-Saint Martin, Le village élu de l'art flamand, Brussels 1965, p. 429, no. 189, illustrated
P. Boyens, Gust. De Smet:Kroniek-Kunsthistorische analyse, Antwerp 1989, p. 227, illustrated in colour, p. 397, no. 833, illustrated 
P. Boyens, Sint-Martens-Latem, Kunstenaarsdorp in Vlaanderen, Tielt 1998, illustrated on the frontispiece(detail)

In the early 1930s, the period of the Le Couple au Village, Gustave De Smet returned to the subject matter of the villagers, the farmhouses and the fields.The entourage and the vicinity where he and his neighbours were living became the very heart of his paintings and led De Smet to paint in these years some of the most impressive masterpieces of Flemish Expressionism. During the twenties this movement, and especially the work of its three most important representatives, Frits van den Berghe, Constant Permeke and Gustave De Smet, were championed by the Brussels galleries and magazines Sélection and Le Centaure. Besides the Flemish character of these Expressionists, their development must be considered as a response to contemporary international artistic currents and in the case of Gustave De Smet to Fauvism and French Cubism.

In the present work, Le Couple au Village, the rich ostentation of flags creates a liveliness, reminiscent of Raoul Dufy and Albert Marquet. But Gustave De Smet responds to the magnificent display of colours used by the Fauves in a very original way: a variety of pink, orange and ochre colours suggest the lightness of the event;
also, he reduces the surroundings of the peasants according to his own views: “tout qui veut avoir accès  à son univers doit se prêter à  la schematisation…. Les maisons, la grange, l’église ne peuvent exister dans son univers agreste que si elles consentent à prendre des formes cubiques… La réduction à l’essentiel, au schema est chez  De Smet un souci constant, une exigence première intransigeante «  (P. Haesaerts, op.cit., p.283).
In the eye-catching painting Le Couple au Village Gustave De Smet culminates in a powerful cubistic language of forms and he gives the spectator a very good insight in his way towards his concern of balancing planes. “Si De Smet fut l'un de ceux qui décaina les forces expressionists, il fut par contre celui qui sut le maîtriser et s’en servir pour formuler les principes d’un art fait d’équilibre, de sagesse, d’ordonance classique, mais aussi d’un art qui reste bouillonnant de ses intime et de forces concentrées » (P. Haesaerts, op.cit., p.298).