Aensien doet ghedenken in fin de siècle Belgium. The decoration projects for the Brussels Palais de Justice (1883-1914)
Stefan Huygebaert, UGent

On October 15^th, 1883, the Palais the Justice, designed by architect Joseph Poelaert, was inaugurated in Brussels. Since two years, the building and the judicial world that was soon to inhabit and surround it, had been debated in the avant garde art journal L’Art Moderne and the legal Journal des Tribunaux, both founded in 1881 by Edmond Picard, Octave Maus and likeminded jurists. Their concern for the construction of the Palais, is maintenance and decoration lead them to unite in the group Les Amis du Palais in 1911. This lecture focuses on the different sculptural and painted decoration projects for the Palais de Justice, their iconography and the conception their authors had in mind. Originating at the end of the romantic era, during which decorative art was often devoted to national(-istic) history, and at the dawn of artistic symbolism and idealism, these projects and their history inform us on how legal imagery and its purpose was perceived by exactly those men whose passionate writings and initiatives in a way symbolise the correlation of the worlds of art and law in fin de siècle Belgium.

Registration: activiteiten.rc@vub.ac.be

Information: 02 629 26 31