Eugeen Van Mieghem 1875-1930: kunstenaar van het dagelijks leven

Abstract

Artist Eugeen Van Mieghem (1875-1930) lived and worked in a time of radical change. Antwerp became a world port again, the largest after New York. Steamships, trams, cars, and electric lighting made their debut. Dockworkers (m/f) were exploited and gradually overshadowed by seafaring giants and grain haulers. Social strife erupted. Revolutionary movements in art followed one another in rapid succession. Eugeen Van Mieghem was everywhere. He saw, drew, and painted everything continuously in his dynamic, dazzling style: laborers, the poor, strikers, Jewish transmigrants on their way to America, refugees and soldiers in the First World War, but also the beau monde in the opera and art circles, whores in harbor pubs and demi-mondaines in brasseries, and--last but not least--his own wife and child. His eye is a camera, his hand draws rapidly to keep pace with his restless gaze. He is the frantic reporter of everyday life. His oeuvre reads like the diary of a city in motion, a world in flux.