Joseph Stevens

Joseph Stevens, birth name Edouard Joseph Léopold Stevens (26 November 1816 – 2 August 1892) was a Belgian animalier painter and engraver. He is mainly known for his paintings with dogs as the principal subject. This included dog portraits, dogs interacting among themselves or with their masters and dog markets. From depicting sentimental scenes in a Romanticist manner his art developed towards a more Realist rendering of dogs living on the street or working for travelling entertainers. He won the admiration of the French realist painter Courbet for these efforts. He was a pioneer of Realism in Belgian art. He further painted horses and singeries, scenes with monkeys engaging in human activities. A few marines by his hand are also known.

Life He was born in Brussels on 26 November 1816 as the son of Jean François Léopold Stevens (1791–1837) and Catherine Victorine Dufoy (1797–1875). His father had originally served in the armies of the French Empire and the Kingdom of the United Netherlands. The Stevens family was well-off and passionate about art. Father Stevens was an art collector, with a particular interest in Théodore Géricault.-He wished his sons to embark on an artistic career.

In 1868, he was one of the founding members of the Société Libre des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. It played a formative role in establishing avant-gardism in Belgium. Stevens finally returned to live in Brussels in 1869.

His work attracted many patrons, notably Henri Van Cutsem. The Belgian King Leopold II also bought paintings of his. He received many distinctions during his career including:

Medal 2nd class of the Paris Salon of 1852. the Medal 2nd class of the Universal Exhibition of Paris of 1855. the Medal recall - Paris - 1857. the Medal 2nd class of the Paris Salon of 1861. Chevalier of the Order of Leopold of Belgium in 1861. Chevalier of the Imperial Order of the Légion d'Honneur in 1861. Officer of the Order of Leopold of Belgium in 1866. the Medal of the Universal Exhibition of Vienna in 1873. the Medal of Honor at the London Salon in 1875.

Despite (or perhaps because of) his success, he fell prey to alcoholism in his later years and was no longer able to paint. He died on 2 August 1892 in Ixelles and was buried in Zaventem. A few marines by his hand are also known.

He initially depicted dogs in sentimental scenes with a Romanticist flavour. His art developed towards a more Realist rendering of dogs living on the street or working for travelling entertainers. A breakthrough piece was his 1848 painting entitled Morning in Brussels. It showed stray dogs searching for food in the gutters and garbage dumps. In the background, barely visible, are two silhouettes of women, probably two beggars, who clearly share a fate similar to that of the dogs.

With this work he was a pioneer of Realism in Belgian art. This new style was in line with experiments already underway in France. Stevens continued creating metaphorical scenes in which usually dogs, sometimes a few horses or a monkey, evoke the plight of the wretched. These works can be seen as a half-hearted attempt at creating social realist art without the conviction to fully commit to the cause of the downtrodden. His palette, which was dominated by browns and blacks broken by a few flashes of light, gives a muted atmosphere to the realist scenes. It was only in the work of Constantin Meunier that the social realist intention in Belgian painting came fully into its own. Stevens could not free himself of his initial bourgeois sentimentalism as is evident in his 1848 painting Alone in the world (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium).

This realism, of which he was one of the pioneers, attracted the interest from the 1850s of predominantly French critics and intellectuals, particularly Baudelaire, who dedicated to him the prose poem Good Dogs (Les bons chiens), the ultimate from the collection Le Spleen de Paris which, incidentally, was inspired by Stevens' painting L'Intérieur du saltimbanque, and also Léon Cladel, who was inspired by Stevens' paintings to write Léon Cladel et sa kyrielle de chiens (1885).

Museum holdings Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (RMFAB) Belfius Art Collection Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent Musée des beaux-arts de Marseille: At the door Musée d'Orsay: The punishment of Tantalus Mu.ZEE (Kunstmuseum aan zee), Ostend Musée des beaux-arts de Rouen: A dog's job Gallery

Notes and references