Eugène Laermans

Eugène Jules Joseph Baron Laermans (22 October 1864 – 22 February 1940) was a Belgian painter.

Life He was born in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean. At the age of eleven, he contracted meningitis, which left him deaf and nearly mute (although some sources say he was born deaf). This concentrated his attention on his sense of sight, and led to his decision to become a painter. He enrolled at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in 1887, where he studied with Jean-François Portaels and was a great admirer of the paintings of Félicien Rops. The writings of Charles Baudelaire were also an influence, so Laermans joined the Decadent movement in 1890 and created illustrations for Baudelaire's book Les Fleurs du mal. By 1893, his work resembled that of Bruegel rather than the decadents, and he had settled on his signature theme, portrayals of downtrodden laborers and poor peasants which some critics saw as "disturbing caricatures". In 1894, he began to exhibit at the Salons of La Libre Esthétique. 1922 : Member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium. 1927 : Created Baron Laermans.

Selected works