Brief Report
This landscape-format painting in the standard F 25 size depicts in pale green and blue tones the view across a heavily vegetated steep cliff to the open sea. The two layers of white ground seem to have been applied by the artist himself (fig. 6). Starting from a spare bluish-violet sketch of the contours, van Rysselberghe filled in the areas with dynamically placed short brushstrokes that in many cases modelled the topography in their course and direction (fig. 9). While the foreground has numerous places where the ground is visible, the paint applications become increasingly compact as we move towards the sky. During the painting process, van Rysselberghe corrected the outline of the cliffs, changed the clouds and partly overpainted a previously planned boat (fig. 8). The landscape was painted on the verso of a painting which the artist had rejected and painted over in white; he then turned it round, cropped the edges and stretched it on the present stretcher. On what is now the verso we can with the naked eye only recognize the bare outlines of a grisaille portrait in vertical format, but infrared reflectography brings it out much more clearly: it is probably a portrait of the Belgian artist, van Rysselberghe's friend Constantin Meunier (figs 2,11). The execution evinces a strong similarity with two other works by van Rysselberghe, which show Meunier in the same pose [Feltkamp 2003, nos. 1900-007, 1900-015], a charcoal drawing and a grisaille in oil on canvas respectively, which are now in the Kröller- Müller Museum in Otterlo (fig. 12). Like the Cap Gris Nez landscape, these works were executed in 1900 and were mentioned as early as 1901 in a letter from the artist to his friend Octave Maus [Chartrain-Hebbelinck 1966, pp. 82/83]. It was in 1901 too that all three works were shown at the "La Libre Estétique" exhibition in Brussels. We may presume that the failed first attempt at the portrait on the verso of Cap Gris Nez was painted very shortly before the two other portraits of Meunier and was concealed under a white ground precisely because the three pictures were due to be exhibited together.
Theo van Rysselberghe
born on 23 November 1862 in Gent,
died on 13 December 1926 in Saint-Clair, France
Fig. 02
Verso
Fig. 03
Raking light
Fig. 04
UV fluorescence
Fig. 05
Detail, signature
Fig. 06
Right-hand turnover edge with edge of painted surface and clear stretchmarks; the two details show the ground in its two-layer application (top) and with fine air-bubbles which are apparent right into the blue paint layer (bottom), microscopic photo (M = 1 mm)
Fig. 07
Detail of the foreground, the bluish-violet underdrawing is still visible as the outline of the cliffs
Fig. 08
Mapping of the compositional changes during the painting process, with details of the revised clouds (top), the correction on the slope of the cliff (middle) and the overpainted boat (bottom)
Fig. 09
Dynamically placed short brushstrokes, often modelling the topography through their course and direction
Fig. 10
Substance emanating from underlying paint layers consisting of green or green blends, microscopic photograhs (M = 1 mm)
Fig. 11
Verso, grisaille painting, portrait of Constantin Meunier under UV radiation (left) and in IR reflectography (right)
Fig. 12
Théo van Rysselberghe, Study for the portrait of Constantin Meunier, 1900, oil on canvas, grisaille, 100 x 81 cm, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo