Isidore Verheyden

In his oil on canvas *Woman in the Fields*, the Antwerp artist Isidore Verheyden pays tribute to the rural world. Like Jean-François Millet before him in his famous *Angelus* or in his *Glaneuses*, he focuses his attention on the unchanging toil of those who work the land. With resignation and without enthusiasm, a woman sows the seeds from her bag. Her face is blank, devoid of expression. Her silhouette is silhouetted against the light in a completely bare environment. To give his painting an atmosphere of tranquillity, he uses muted yet delicate colours, mainly browns and beiges. The brushwork, meanwhile, is free. It shows that the painter, who belonged to the avant-garde artistic group Les XX, no longer felt compelled to produce mimetic painting. He had settled in Tervueren, in the countryside east of Brussels. In his paintings, he does not denounce the social conditions of the peasants he mingles with, as the painter Eugène Laermans would do. More modestly, Isidore Verheyden’s intention is to bear witness to their way of life.

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