Flemish Expressionism

The movement originated with the painter Albert Servaes, an artist associated with the first artist colony at Sint-Martens-Latem, also referred to as the first Latem School. From 1905 Servaes' art gradually moved away from the impressionism and luminism of the previous generation of Flemish artists towards a darker palette and a mystical tension. From 1911 on, his influence became visible in the work of Constant Permeke, who is usually considered the foremost master of the movement. It was centred around an art colony in Sint-Martens-Latem, an idyllic village on the banks of the river Lys in East Flanders, near Ghent. Permeke had studied art in Ghent, together with Gustave de Smet and Frits Van den Berghe. Before the First World War, emerging Belgian Expressionists such as Frits Van den Berghe, Gustave De Smet and Constant Permeke were inspired by Fauvism and to some extent by Cubism, emulating the bright Impressionist approach of Émile Claus and Théo van Rysselberghe. Rik Wouters in particular was attracted by the Fauvists but he died in 1916 after suffering from a serious illness. During World War I, most painters from Sint-Martens-Latem fled Belgium: Gustaaf Van de Woestijne, Léon de Smet and others lived in London, where they continued working in a late Impressionistic style. Permeke also lived in England but already painted in a monumental, dark expressionism. Gustave De Smet and Frits Van den Berghe lived in the Netherlands, where in about 1916 they changed their style from a melancholy Impressionism to the new Expressionism, influenced by Dutch painters like Jan Sluyters, the German Heinrich Campendonk, and the French cubist Henri Le Fauconnier who also lived in the Netherlands during the war. ==Artists==