George Minne

Acquired in 1950 at the sale of a private collection, *The Kneeling Figure* is the most famous sculpture by the Ghent-born artist George Minne, cast here in bronze. Kneeling figures first appeared in his work in 1889, in the form of a dejected couple with bowed heads – Adam and Eve expelled from Paradise. Conceived nearly ten years later, this Agenouillé bears witness to the artistic journey undertaken by Minne, who had by then become part of the Brussels avant-garde. As in Adam and Eve, the young boy looks towards the ground, his head bowed. But here, he is isolated, stripped of any context; the rendering of his body is much more refined, and his posture more stylised. The young man kneeling at a right angle is reduced to a ‘human chrysalis’ (Le Petit Bleu, 1899), clutching his frail body with his long, bent arms, his shoulders and elbows forming additional protrusions. Through its angularity and elongation, the Kneeling Figure evokes the columnar statues of Gothic sculpture. The parallel had not escaped Minne’s contemporaries: “It is Gothic, modernised yet authentic. The figures in his work seem detached from the sculpted crowds that populate the ancient cathedrals. Yet they reveal an anguish and a anxiety that are very much of today” (art critic Franz Hellens, 1925). Through this stimulating connection to the Middle Ages, which infused his Symbolist art with emotion (contemplation, fear, pain…) and countless drawings and sculptures through which he succeeded in distilling his favourite motifs (including The Kneeling Figure), George Minne revitalised sculpture at the turn of the century. His large sculptural group of five Kneeling Figures arranged around a circular basin, dubbed The Fountain of Narcissus by the writer Karel Van de Woestijne, made a great impression at the Salons de la Libre Esthétique (1899) and the Vienna Secession (1900), marking a new generation of Expressionist artists, such as Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka. The latter particularly praised the inner depth emanating from sculptures such as The Kneeling Figure.

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