rodolphe paul wytsman (1860 - 1927)
Rodolphe Paul Marie Wytsman was a Belgian Impressionist painter. He trained at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and was one of the founding members of Les XX, a group of avant-garde Belgian artists. As a painter Wytsman gravitated toward landscapes. His early works were realistic. In the following years he developed a more pre-Impressionist style. By 1881 Wytsman lived in Brussels, where he was influenced by early Modernist Painting. In Capeinick's studio Wytsman met his wife-to be, Juliette Trullemans. It was an ideal pairing: both painted sunlit landscapes and tableaux with plants and shrubs that were very popular. The two artists' careers melded harmoniously, and the proceeds allowed them to take many trips. Besides landscapes, the Wytsmans preferred to paint bright flowers, herbs and plants, which often appear in the foreground of their paintings, usually with a vista of the surrounding countryside: ponds, marshes, flowering trees, flower beds, blooming heaths and fallow land overgrown with weeds and wildflowers. Wytsman's technique reflected a realistic pre-Impressionist style. He sought to depict the effects of intense light in their paintings. He is among the main representatives of the Luminist genre in neo-Impressionism.
