Exhibition: Fernand STIEVENART – Juliette de REUL: a couple of artists from the Wissant School.

In 1896, seven years after their meeting, Fernand Stiévenart and Juliette de Reul married in Brussels, before moving to Douai. Attracted by the Opal Coast, they spend their summers in Wissant, and join the workshop of Adrien Demont where they meet other artists such as Henri and Marie Duhem or Georges Maroniez. These artists then formed the School of Wissant and put their new friendship at the service of art, working together the same subjects with an individual sensitivity, each sometimes serving as a model to the other. At the beginning of his career, influenced by the Barbizon School and his apprenticeship with Emile Breton and Adrien Demont, Fernand Stiévenart creates works in which nature is omnipresent: flobarts stranded on the foreshore, Wissantas farms and biblical scenes in large landscapes are the main subjects. In his aesthetic quest, he quickly freed himself from his masters to engage in an avant-garde creation, marked by the Impressionists. The artist then adopts a freer touch and a shimmering chromatic gram to represent the landscapes of the Opal Coast. Conversely, Juliette de Reul, with a perfect mastery of drawing, produces watercolours with very soft colors depicting the landscapes of Wissant, but also interior scenes, still lifes and nudes. Her more discreet career was encouraged by Virginie Demont-Breton at a time when women were little known in the art world. Fernand Stiévenart and Juliette de Reul moved to Brussels in 1913, where they died in 1922 and 1925 respectively. They left behind an artistic production that remained confidential for nearly a century. The unpublished exhibition produced by the Department, pays tribute to this couple of artists, and commemorates the centenary of the death of Fernand Stiévenart. Exhibition from June 25 to November 27, 2022