Artwork Title: Kindertafel (The Children's Table)

Kindertafel (The Children's Table), 1919

Gustave Van De Woestyne

"The disproportion of the environment relative to the children accentuates their ignorance. The myth of harmony between the farmer and his environment is eliminated here: the children and things around them each live their own lives, innerly with great power, complex and simple at the same time, but in an almost scary isolation." This characterization applies equally to scenes from the personal environment of the artist, such as The Children's Table (1919). The five children of the painter are grouped around a beautiful oval table, dressed in festive white. Unexpectedly, the contradiction between the warmth of family life and the Sunday coziness that you expect at such a scene and the alienating, oblique bird's eye view, between the familiar of the interior and the objects on the table, and the unruly, almost rebellious looks on the faces of each child speaks volumes. (Google translation of text at http://www.likri.be/Van_de_Woestyne_LW_2010.htm)
Uploaded on Sep 9, 2017 by Suzan Hamer

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