Gleanings

Achilles De Maertelaere was very sympathetic to the Esperanto movement. This is evident from several contributions he made for Esperanto magazines.

Achilles De Maertelaere painted a view of the church of the Madonna del Sasso (see previous Gleaning) during a trip to Switzerland in 1950 with his friend Théo Bauwens.

It's always interesting, when a painter produces a landscape, to try and place oneself where the painter was painting. This summer, we went to Orselina (in the Ticino region, near Locarno, Switzerland) to find the subject of the only painting of a monument by Achilles De Maertelaere. The painting, an oil on canvas mounted on wood, measures 56 cm...

Achilles Bentos' predilection for themes from ancient mythology is well known (see, among others, the paintings of Leda and the swan). Another theme that Bentos took up at least twice is that of Daphnis and Chloe.

A painting by Achilles De Maertelaere Bentos has recently appeared in the United States. It is a portrait of an Indian, with a background in Gustav Klimt-style. This painting is part of the decoration of Café Bentos, the café in the Lammerstraat in Ghent, which was run by a friend of Achilles called Henri Frans. It was this Henri...

Achilles De Maertelaere was quite fond of mythological themes. The most well-known scenes are undoubtedly those of "Leda and the Swan".

In May of last year, a previously unknown painting by Achilles Bentos came to the forefront in a sale at the Vanderkinderen Auction House. A naked woman is looking at the viewer, partly covering her body with a golden yellow sheet. The frame is original and, as we often see in our painter's work, somewhat baroque.

On February 17, 1934, Belgian King Albert I died in Marche-les-Dames in a mountaineering accident. Very quickly, the merchants of Ghent launched a subscription for the erection of a statue in his honour. After much discussion and tribulations, it was decided to launch an art competition, reserved for artists from Ghent and East Flanders, for a...

In the face of the pandemic that confines us all and whose end we cannot (yet) really see, we all pay tribute to the nursing staff. Indirectly, this blog page is a tribute to all of them.

Achilles De Maertelaere studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Ghent, from 1894-1895. He was then only twelve years old.