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Nieuwe Wereldontwerpen: kunst op papier in de Belgische historische avant-gardes

Year: 2025
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This dissertation examines the role of paper in Belgian avant-garde art between 1917 and 1950. Supervised by Prof. dr. Sascha Bru and co-supervised by Prof. dr. Barbara Baert, it forms part of the BePAPER project (Belgian Art on Paper in a European Perspective, 1918-1950), within the BRAIN-be 2.0 research programme funded by BELSPO. Conducted in collaboration with the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium (RMFAB) and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), the project aimed to study, reveal, and promote Belgian avant-garde works on paper. The RMFAB collection Work on Paper Modern Art, comprising over a thousand individual sheets and sketchbooks, provided the starting point. It encompasses a wide variety of autographic works: drawings, sketches, collages, paper assemblages, watercolours, gouaches, book and magazine illustrations, among others. Alongside collection-based research, the dissertation draws on extensive archival and literature study. The aim of this research is to map the multifaceted uses of paper by the Belgian historical avant-garde, encompassing movements from Cubism to Surrealism, and to situate Belgian paper art within a broader European context. By focusing on Belgian practices, this dissertation contributes to the decentering of the avant-garde. Paper, a modest yet omnipresent material, held particular appeal for avant-garde artists. The industrialisation of paper production, innovations in printmaking, and improved transport systems meant that, in the interwar period, people encountered paper products constantly, both privately and publicly. Paper offered a perfect medium for experimentation: inexpensive, mobile, and versatile, it enabled artists to disseminate ideas widely and to explore social and artistic utopias. Publishing avant-garde magazines provided further opportunities to build transnational networks beyond official artistic circuits, functioning as virtual exhibition spaces. The proliferation of prints, postcard reproductions, and other ephemeral printed matter illustrates the boundless nature of paper. During this period, graphic design also emerged as a distinct discipline in Belgium, with artists such as Jos Léonard, René Magritte, and Marcel-Louis Baugniet undertaking commissions for advertising. Four artists were selected for in-depth case studies, each exemplifying a distinct aspect of avant-garde paper practice. The first chapter examines Paul Joostens, a Dadaist who, from 1917 onwards, pioneered collage and assemblage. Employing an extraordinary range of papers—from tracing sheets to clippings from film magazines—he treated paper not merely as a support but as a medium in itself, occasionally substituting coloured paper for paint. Joostens also produced three-dimensional assemblages, often incorporating found paper elevated to artistic status. For most of his career, he lived as a recluse, constructing a highly personal, autotheistic universe of paper—his so-called "kingdom of useless things"—through which he satirically confronted both his own demons and societal norms. Reading his work through the lens of Salomo Friedländer's concept of Schöpferische Indifferenz enriches understanding of this idiosyncratic paper universe. Joostens created personal shrines with a religious yet humorous undertone, reminiscent of early modern altarpieces. Although paper was not always visually dominant, it remained ever-present, particularly in reproductions of works by his models, the Flemish Primitives. Many of his paper works convey a pessimistic and misogynistic vision of women, using collage to transform ordinary women into automatons and film actresses into modern icons. The second case study focuses on the pencil and ink drawings of Marthe Donas, in which gender and the representation of women remain central themes. An Antwerp-born artist who fled to Ireland during the First World War before settling in Paris, Donas became one of the most internationally recognised Belgian avant-garde artists. Working primarily under the pseudonyms Tour d'Onasky and Tour Donas, she abstracted the female figure into automatons, mannequins, and eventually figures stripped of all feminine features. By reducing women to lines, circles, rectangles, and other geometric forms, she created a paper-based manifesto advocating gender equality. This culminates in Le Tango (1920), in which a pair of tango dancers are reduced to a sober constructivist composition influenced by De Stijl. The drawing circulated internationally via Der Sturm, Berlin's leading avant-garde magazine, demonstrating how paper mediated both artistic and social reflection. Comparisons with dance notations by Rudolf von Laban and Lavinia Schulz highlight her engagement with abstraction, desubjectivation, and movement. The following chapter examines E.L.T. Mesens, a Dadaist turned Surrealist who built a significant network and later co-led the London Surrealist movement. Initially a composer, he became known as a poet, magazine editor, gallerist (famously promoting Magritte), and collagist, with all practices anchored in paper. Through collage, photomontage, and magazine publication, Mesens challenged bourgeois norms, rationalist logic, and Enlightenment ideals, creating a new optics that reoriented the viewer's perception. His paper oeuvre also carried a political dimension, opposing totalitarianism and advocating personal freedom. This chapter emphasises his editorial roles in Variétés and The London Bulletin and analyzes his collages as exercises in alternative modes of vision, aligned with anti-ocularcentric tendencies voiced by contemporary French intellectuals. The final case study concerns the Flemish-nationalist Jozef Peeters, a leading figure of Flemish Constructivism (Zuivere Beelding). Peeters' experiments on paper—sketches, studies, prints, and graphic designs—demonstrate his ambition to create a Gesamtkunstwerk integrating visual art, architecture, and everyday life. Paper allowed him to disseminate ideas cheaply, explore mechanised reproducibility, and experiment with abstraction. Lyrical fantasies, simplified sketches, and schematic studies for his paintings all marked his evolution toward constructivism. Influenced initially by Theosophy, he later pursued a universal abstract language, with the black-and-white linocut as its prime example, disseminated through avant-garde periodicals such as Het Overzicht and De Driehoek. His work on paper exemplifies the artist's role in societal reconstruction, proposing a total aesthetic vision that was never fully realised outside his studio. Together, these case studies demonstrate that paper was far more than a mere support: it was a medium for experimentation, network building, and the articulation of avant-garde artistic philosophy, aligned with the values of the international historical avant-gardes and aimed at societal transformation. By focusing on Belgian practices, this dissertation contributes to the decentering of the avant-garde, challenging dominant Paris- and Berlin-centric narratives and revealing the significance of smaller, geographically peripheral yet highly innovative contexts. In conclusion, the dissertation briefly gestures toward postwar neo-avant-garde practices, with Ernst Engel-Pak as a transitional figure. His archive, still largely unexplored, indicates that the paper trail of the Belgian avant-garde remains far from exhausted. This dissertation represents a starting point in uncovering a vast and under-researched corpus of avant-garde works on paper, highlighting their continued relevance and scholarly potential.
Author: Eycken, Sarah
Language: English
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7112427629
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