watercolour

Final project, Sint-Lukas Academy Brussels (1953)

Celtic mythology (Oisín and Niamh): In the Irish legend, the fairy princess Niamh rides a magical white horse across the sea to take the warrior Oisín (who is often associated with a black horse or dark clothing) to the land of eternal youth (Tír na nÓg). Music and flutes often play an enchanting role in Celtic settings.

Arthur Ryckmans (1953)

watercolour

A black wolf dancing like a circus clown is a surreal image that fits a fantasy story or an animated film. It combines the mysterious, wild nature of the wolf with the cheerful and theatrical movements of a clown. The wolf has a jet-black coat that would normally give him a dangerous appearance. Over his coat he wears typical circus attributes. The far too large ruff around his neck and a party hat. Instead of a fierce gaze, the wolf has a big, somewhat silly smile, as if he is enjoying the applause.

watercolour

watercolour

watercolour

watercolour

watercolour

watercolour

watercolour

watercolour

watercolour

watercolour

needed:
14 quinces for 5 jars.
juice of 1 lemon
2 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
jam sugar (gelling sugar)
Method:
Wash and dry the quinces, remove the stalks.
Cut the quinces into pieces; the core and peel can be boiled along.
In a large cooking pot, cover the fruit completely with water.
Add the lemon juice, cloves and cinnamon stick.
Bring gently to the boil and leave to simmer quietly for 3 hours.
The fruit must really be cooked down to a pulp.
Over a pot, squeeze the cooked mass out completely through a cheesecloth.
Let the juice reduce to 3/4 of the quantity.
Then add the jam sugar, 1 kg for 1 kg of jelly.
Skim off the foam and leave to stand for another 10 min.
Then spoon into jars, put the lid on immediately and store in a cool, dark place.
Quince jelly is very good for the natural functioning of the bowels. 1 teaspoon a day works wonders.
Enjoy!
Jan Kerckx

Aarschot

oil on canvas  80 x 140cm

In this large work in sepia tones, a little like an old photograph, he brings together important monuments of Aarschot. That Edward Moons loved Aarschot is beyond doubt. This did not stop him from looking critically at what was happening and from grumbling about what he did not like.

Large natural stone blocks at Renier in Aarschot

oil on canvas  94 x 179 cm

“Working in an office brings stress from time to time. That was and is no different at NV Renier natuursteen. Making many quotes and, fortunately, noting many orders too is pleasant, but finishing the natural stone according to the order and respecting the agreed delivery time often brings a lot of tension.
It helped me enormously to have many works of art around me in our office, all spread over all the offices, corridors and showrooms. Every work of art calls for reflection, thought and interpretation. That gave me, and hopefully all our employees too, peace. It also drew the attention of our visitors, something unexpected. Art stands in sharp contrast to everyday reality and that is exactly what matters to me. Art has the power to put someone on a different footing.
Art does not necessarily have to be ‘beautiful’. But every work must appeal to the viewer, touch them. There must be a story behind it. The soul of the artist must be perceptible.
For me it was also important to know the artist personally. I made it a point of honour to choose Aarschot artists in particular.
That is how Warre Moons came into the picture. From his studio Warre had a view of our stock of natural stone blocks. The stacking of this heavy material, still in rough block form as quarried, inspired Warre. He painted several works on this subject. They did not become still lifes of blocks, not little landscape scenes, but a very personal interpretation and vision of it. And that corresponds perfectly with its purpose: to make the viewer (and especially me) think, to wrong-foot them.
The aquamarine and turquoise colours fascinated me. They brought nature even closer to the stacked blocks.
Thank you Warre! The painting fits perfectly in our office and certainly fulfils its purpose of bringing calm from time to time.” – Ir François Renier

Meetshoven, 2012a 57 ha nature reserve in Aarschot

oil on canvas 60 x 50 cm 

oil on canvas

oil on canvas  99 x 120 cm 

oil on canvas  79 x 89 cm

Sailing boat, 1971

oil on canvas  58.5 x 38.5 cm 

Euphoria, on the occasion of the birth of Griet.

oil on canvas  69.5 x 60 cm

video maker: Rik Terlyn, Kunstkoppen is a project of CC Het Gasthuis and IGCS. Narrated by Griet Moons, Edward’s daughter.

“Dad was unique. The couple that mum and dad were was also unique.” – Griet Moons

“He lived for art and he had the art of living. I know nobody who had such a passion for art and everything connected with it.” – Lief Moons Holemans

Just after his marriage to Lief, Edward made this still life at the academy. It became his first work in their living room, 1970

oil on canvas  53  x 72 cm  

Still life

oil on canvas  78 x 69.5 cm

Still life

oil on canvas  78 x 69.5 cm

Céline Moons Schellens (1905-1998), Edward’s mother

oil on canvas

Edward’s father was called Gaston Moons. He was stationmaster in Aarschot. Céline was a housewife and a golden person. The couple lived on the Gijmelsesteenweg and had six children.

Abstract painting

oil on canvas  80 x 89 cm

“Edward Moons is completely himself. A man who, although cheerful by nature, is always inclined towards dramatic situations, but always knows how to give them an outlet of hope. Perhaps this is the purest symbolism of the cor irrequietum, of the human heart that is restless, for the good, the beautiful, the true.” – Clem De Ridder Flemish composer and writer

Abstract painting

oil on canvas  70 x 50 cm 

Abstract painting

oil on canvas  78.5 x 89 cm

Abstract painting

oil on canvas

“Io considero il quadro uno sguardo veloce sulla realtà.  Una lampadina che si accende e poi si spegne.”  – Pietro Lista

Abstract painting

oil on canvas  54.5 x 75 cm  (1976)

oil on canvas  99 x 130 cm

oil on canvas  79.5 x 90 cm

Abstract painting

oil on canvas

“… With a tangle of thin lines he lays colour on the canvas with quick, accurate touches. Thinly spread or in thick brushstrokes, infinitely rich in rust-brown, often dark tones. Oil paint lends itself in such varied ways to broadly covering layers, the brushstroke like watercolour, very strongly diluted in fine layers, caressingly soft, spread out. Barely any colour, almost transparent. Thus faces sometimes almost disappear into the dark background. As if the person modestly almost disappears into the surroundings.” – Josée Lehon art historian

Father Damien, 2014 

oil on canvas  70 x 60 cm 

oil on canvas  50 x 64 cm

Self-portrait

oil on canvas

untitled

oil on canvas  99 x 80 cm

Setting sun and bushes, 2012

oil on canvas  50 x 60 cm 

Lagoon – Cabanas in Portugal, 2012

oil on canvas  70 x 60 cm 

Lagoon, Cabanas, 2014

oil on canvas  70 x 60 cm 

Edward Moons and his wife Lief Holemans got to know the Portuguese Cabanas through friends around 1980. They saw the old, simple fishing village evolve but the place never lost its authenticity. The couple remained faithful to the holiday resort. For Edward Moons the ideal landscape par excellence. Or sea view, of course. In more than 800 watercolours he captured the unique place. Each work is built up with the precision of the miniaturist. The view, over land or sea, set in planes, so that each work, however small, shows us infinite depth in clear tones. Deep blue with a multitude of fine nuances. Besides a good eye, watercolour demands great expertise. Here again Moons shows himself a master of this difficult discipline.

Lagoon, Cabanas, 2017

oil on canvas  60 x 60 cm 

Lagoon, Cabanas, 1991

oil on canvas  150 x 100 cm 

Space figures, 1988Almost identical, they move between planets, fleeing to another world in our solar system.
Everything takes place in colourful, transparent colours. Harsh, pessimistic subjects, but with the light of hope in every image.

oil on canvas  65 x 65 cm 

Space figures – conquerors

oil on canvas  70 x 60 cm 

Space figures – sense of security,1990

oil on canvas  70 x 60 cm 

Space figures, 1991

oil on panel  70 x 60 cm

“He sees people as atoms, dust pressed between lines. Lines full of pain in a world full of pain. Little people, without volume, almost identical, as when you look from a distance at the teeming mass on earth. Ward takes no account of anatomy, draws only contour lines and fills them with colour. His people, his landscapes, his forms are finished and also not finished. They are part of a continuous process of movement. They are life itself. Moons wants to give form to this world and that other world. Ward Moons’ theme is harsh and at first seems pessimistic, but if you keep looking you see the light in every image, hope perhaps?” – Ina Stabergh author, city poet of Diest

Three brothers, 1999

oil on canvas  

Three brothers have a photograph taken in the year 1913. The driver Jozef Moons fell at Ramskapelle in 1914. Joseph Moons, son of Petrus Moons and Florentina Mertens. Born on 14 July 1893. “Fallen on the field of honour at Nieuwpoort on 23 October 1914. Funeral service in the Church of Our Lady in Aarschot on Monday 10 November 1919.”

“Egged on by French-speaking officers to enlist as a volunteer. Almost no training and sent immediately to the front, to fall very quickly there at the very beginning of the war, for… the fatherland. Every year Lief and I go to visit Ramskapelle (a must for me). The man in the middle of the little car is Joseph and at the back my father Gaston (Joseph’s brother).” – Edward Moons

Two friends, 2013

oil on canvas  60 x 70 cm 

Undergrowth, 2017

oil on canvas  70 x 60 cm  

“Painting is waging a constant battle with the surrounding world, with oneself and with matter. May this battle never be won, may the challenges remain, so that the spiritual ascent can remain constant in your studio, your only familiar world.” – Paul de Keulenaar teacher at Atheneum Aarschot and lecturer at the European School Brussels

Setting sun, 2017

oil on canvas 70 x 60 cm 

Landscape, 1975

oil on canvas  100 x 150 cm 

“Moons has an exceptional palette which he knows how to use in an artistically responsible way. With seemingly very simple technical means he obtains colourful works that are in fact a hushed essence and from which at the same time a restrained expression shines.” – Maurice Haccuria painter, sculptor and graphic artist

Iceland mountains, 2017

oil on canvas  90 x 80 cm 

Iceland, 2017

oil on canvas  90 x 80 cm 

Iceland, 2017

oil on canvas 80 x 90 cm 

Iceland, 2018

oil on canvas  50 x 40 cm 

Iceland, 2018

oil on canvas  60 x 70 cm

Undergrowth, 2012

oil on canvas  60 x 50 cm 

Rising sun, 2018

oil on canvas  70 x 50 cm 

Distant horizon, 2017

oil on canvas  70 x 60 cm

“Edward Moons was a sensitive man. He sometimes tended towards gloom. That expressed itself in dark, let us say sombre works. Then they alternated again with fresh, colourful, figurative paintings. Moons could capture landscapes, buildings and portraits like no other.” – Jan Van der Borght art collector

“Fishing village in a southern landscape, depicted in suggestive colours. A poetic world that makes you think (if only I were there).” – Edward Moons

oil on canvas

African woman with childA loving scene set in a harsh world and yet fully in the eternal light.

oil on canvas

There are quite a few self-portraits by Edward Moons. He painted himself from the front and in profile, with various facial expressions, plain, cheerful or serious. It should be clear that he did not do so out of vanity. The subject lent itself well to exploring painting itself. The curls of his beard, his thinning hair, the expression of the eyes.

portrait through the lens of photographer Berten

studies:
Teacher training college, higher art education, monumental arts, painting

Some of his solo exhibitions in Belgium:
Saint Roch Chapel in Aarschot (Stations of the Cross)
the abbey church at Averbode (Stations of the Cross)
Brussels: gallery ‘Astoria’ in Sint-Jacob-op-den-Coudenberg, Cultural Centre Neder-Over-Heembeek

From his solo exhibitions abroad:
Lüdenscheid (Germany): gallery ‘S’ Rathaus
Lüdenscheid: Pauluskirche (Stations of the Cross)
Vevey (Switzerland): gallery ‘Capricorne’
Tavira (Portugal): galerie di arte

Work represented at touring exhibitions:
Theme: Landscape – selected in an international company at the “Cultural Centre of Brussels”

Teacher at the Municipal Academy of Fine Arts in Aarschot.

Presenter and compiler of the ‘Kunstbabbel’: In 1989 the painter Edward ‘Warre’ Moons started the Aarschotse Kunstbabbel. Over all those years he received several hundred, often striking figures from the world of art, music, sport, politics, etc… .

Edward Moons received the Toetenel Prize three times in Brussels and won the Bob Courtens Prize in Antwerp.

Edward Moons received the Prize of the Aarschot Cultural Council in 2001.

Poster on the occasion of an exhibition in the shop windows of Aarschot in 2019.

With thanks to André Matthijssens, photographer

Back again: in her handwritten recipe book, Clairette Serneels (1936-2024) reveals the delicious roast of Joséke Geens Bruynseels

Aarschot railway

Zwanenstraat – Aarschot – A hawker comes along with a handcart. He sells milk by the litre and ladles raw milk with a measuring cup from a barrel into the cooking pot that everyone brings outside. So no packaging!

Jan Symons, Frans’s brother

Maria Symons Van Tongelen (1928-2018)

Elzenhof

German mother and daughter in front of the Orleanstoren (around 1958)

Shadow children with the ball

Rocco Granata – Witte Molen – Aarschot

German friend and Yvonne Van Tongelen, around 1958

Maria Symons Van Tongelen (1928-2018)

Roland Van Tongelen

At the heath in Aarschot

The 1958 World Expo

The 1958 World Expo – the woman with the black handbag is Maria Symons Van Tongelen and Yvonne Coppens with the white handbag

Expo 58

German friend and Maria Symons Van Tongelen

Cannes

Cannes

Cannes

Expo ’58 Canadian pavilion

Walter Godefroot (°1943) nicknamed “The Flemish Bulldog”

My mother was a fantastic mum… she was there for us every day (5 children)… she cooked every day (deliciously)… starter, main course, dessert… incredible. I still wonder how she managed it. Those were very different times, from 1951 to 1978. My mother was a housewife and was happy in her ‘job’ – cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing, sewing… – always content, never complaining or nagging. I am still grateful to her every day for the lovely childhood I was able to enjoy.

The grandchildren called her bomma, the great-grandchildren called her ‘big bomma’.

Good luck!

Best wishes,

Chris

Light, air, water and movement

100×120 cm

acrylic on canvas

With this series of works Ben Van Dyck wants to point out the fragility of our nature.

Light, air, water and movement

100 x 120 cm

acrylic on canvas

Light, air, water and movement

100×120 cm

acrylic on canvas

Air Water Life

100×120 cm

acrylic on canvas

Light, air, water and movement

100×120 cm

acrylic on canvas

This work with the frog radiates life and movement.

Air Water Life

100×120 cm

acrylic on canvas

Air Water Life

100×120 cm

acrylic on canvas

The light colours, various shades of yellow, blue and green, invite the viewer to cheer up. Ben Van Dyck does include a mild accusation, without playing the preacher. He wants to point out the fragility of our nature. We must treat our surroundings with care and responsibility. In this series of paintings Ben Van Dyck uses two main colours with which he can play to evoke light, air and life. And together that makes the work move. In this setting Ben Van Dyck paints animals. They too radiate strength and life.

Air Water Life

100×140 cm

acrylic on canvas

Nie wieder

90x90cm

acrylic on canvas

Death Zoo

100x100cm

acrylic on canvas

This work comes from a series of ten with themes from Ben’s childhood memories, such as the circus, the fair and the zoo… . They look like cheerful spot-the-difference puzzles, until you look a little more closely. Then they turn out to have a macabre ‘dark side’.

linocut on butcher’s paper (1 of a series of 4)

Sloths and Coffee

acrylic on canvas

Ever since he was young, Ben Van Dyck (b. 1969, Aarschot) has been a passionate draughtsman. In 1986, as a connoisseur of the better Belgian comics, Ben won the Marc Sleen competition, which earned him a role as a comic-strip hero in a Nero story. He picked up his fascination for exotic animals from the comic-strip artist Marc Sleen (1922-2016). In his stories Marc Sleen worked in the animals he encountered on his safari trips with King Leopold III. Ben Van Dyck is a well-known Fleming thanks to the VRT documentary series ‘Het Leven zoals het is’, which ran for years. Ben features prominently in the television series by reporter Arnaut Houven ‘Leve de Zoo!’, in ‘Blueberry Hill’ by Robbe De Hert and in ‘Het Sacrament’ by Hugo Claus. At Antwerp Zoo he is responsible, among other things, for the development of the reptile house. At Planckendael Zoo, the phenomenon Ben becomes head keeper of the elephants and other large mammals. It goes without saying that the animal world becomes an important source of inspiration for his oeuvre. His painting can be divided into large, semi-realistic works with nature as their theme, and cartoon-like paintings in the recurring colours of black, white and red. Ben studied at the art secondary schools in Aarschot and Lier, and then followed a directing course at the RITCS. In his boundless imagination, the giant Ben Van Dyck continues to perfect himself at the Academy of Fine Arts. This bon vivant and artist draws, paints, makes graphic work, writes, performs puppet theatre with self-made puppets of foam rubber or rubber latex and gives lectures on, among other things, the usefulness of the zoo.

“There are four things that interest people: other people, animals, children and misery.” – Ben Van Dyck (photo: David Legreve)

Ben Van Dyck in action

Ben Van Dyck is an Aarschot Greeter

Besides academics who guide visitors around ducal Aarschot, there are non-professional guides. Volunteers who show their favourite gems of the Hageland. They call themselves “Greeters”. The passionate Ben Van Dyck is one of them.

More information and reservations: toerisme@aarschot.be

“I want to introduce people to my fantastic city in a cheerful, relaxed and pleasant atmosphere, because I am proud of my city.” – Ben Van Dyck

Idriz Jossa graduated from the Fashion Academy in Antwerp in the late eighties and became known at the time as the designer of ‘New Beat Fashion’ and of his hyped 2006 collection ‘Clochard de Luxe’.

His 25-year past in the fashion world is noticeable in the artworks he presents. On the one hand, he shows deconstructed shop-window mannequins that he dresses, not in costumes, but as if they were models, leaving a striking impression. On the other hand, he makes 3D-printed models with accessories that amaze the viewer with the surprising interplay of different materials. The result is often a somewhat unsettling coherence of opposites. In fact, his ‘provocative absurdist’ sculptures depict the chaos and madness that have come to dominate life in recent years, through its multiplicity, confusion and raging speed. He sees them as a kind of freedom fighters for what we have survived in recent years or what we will continue to experience. In all their absurdity they also have something funny and ironic. The models speak of being human; the bursting extraversion of the figures also shows their vulnerability. At the same time they are meant as a counterweight to the chaos and ultimately also as an expression of sensitivity and beauty, because in spite of everything he wants to keep calling himself an aesthete.

The black-and-white Appartatelier photos are by Patrick Van Vlerken

video maker: Rik Terlyn, Kunstkoppen is a project of CC Het Gasthuis and IGCS. 

Vincent Halflants & Leen Lybeer
It should not surprise you if you do not (yet) know the artist couple Leen Lybeer and Vincent Halflants. Unlike many, often younger, artists, they have rarely or never appeared on the local art scene. Their life’s work is located at Speelhoven, the oldest dwelling in Aarschot, protected in a nature reserve on the edge of the town, towards Rillaar. In recent years they have been brought somewhat out of the shadows after SPEELHOVEN. Until 2006, under that name, they organised for ten years a special art encounter, each September, on their estate. With GASTHOVEN, the Het Gasthuis cultural centre in Aarschot picked up the thread and came up with talked-about exhibitions.

Leen Lybeer and Vincent Halflants through the lens of Jef van Eynde

A relative obscurity, that is how it is with the artist couple. And yet the other artists see Vincent Halflants as their mentor. The late Roland Rens, who is omnipresent in Aarschot, very often visited Halflants’ studio and urged recognition. One more thing: Vincent Halflants worked for years in the psychiatric institutions of Tienen and Diest. Works that patients handed over to him he grouped under the name Procréart, the collection he donated to the Dr. Guislain Museum in Ghent in 2018.

Speelhoven.
When Speelhoven was recognised as historic heritage, Halflants received a small subsidy for its restoration. In return, they chose to open the estate for 10 years, from 1997 to 2006, for a number of weeks each year to artists and the public. Many of the artists involved have since become big names in the art world. Think of Hans Op de Beeck, Berlinde de Bruyckere, Freek Wambacq (and many other artists).
Because the surroundings are overwhelmingly green, quite a few artists chose to make an intervention in the landscape. Some made temporary constructions with which the elements played and which were preserved in photographs, film and drawings. The response was great, also internationally. After the series of 10 events, the Het Gasthuis cultural centre took up the thread with ‘Gasthoven’. The high flowering of cultural life in Aarschot today is not unrelated to this.

Leen Lybeer (1937-2024)

First Prize of the Province of Brabant (1966)
Prix Jeune Peinture Belge (1977)

Installation with hand-coloured braids of flax fibres

Leen Lybeer’s early work fits seamlessly into the textile art of the early 1960s. With self-dyed wool, hemp or cotton, Lybeer weaves in haute and basse lisse. Originally Lybeer chose monumental formats in tapestries and bedspreads. Her chasubles fit into the renewed liturgy that the Catholic Church adopted after the Council. This applied art was only a brief run-up. Very quickly Lybeer was making installations with textiles. The materials used evolved towards a broader range with metal threads and organic fibres such as grass, earth, ash, etc.
Her work becomes tighter, stricter and conceptual. In maquettes Lybeer conceives spatial work. A number of designs are also realised on a large scale, in the landscape.

Frame around artificial hill, 1997 cut, dried and muted grass, Bratislava

self-portrait Leen Lybeer, 1979

geometric abstract work with ash on glass

Vincent Halflants (1934-2026)

The work of Vincent Halflants consists for the most part of pencil and charcoal drawings, watercolour, ceramics and monumental sculptures, assemblages with various materials. Besides geometric abstract spatial compositions, it is above all the human being who is present as a theme each time. Not the human figure in academically drawn perfection or as a portrait, but the vulnerable, almost insignificant human being, placed in his very broad historical perspective. In space and time. Halflants often took part in group exhibitions, including at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and performed, among other places, at the Beursschouwburg. He won, among others, the Prix Jeune Sculpture Belge.

The Man and his Shadow, 2006 – bronze and Corten steel
Only in 2006 did a work by Vincent Halflants appear in the public space of Aarschot. The Man and his Shadow was given a place on the Kleine Bergstraat in the Grecht. Vincent was 72 years old at the time.

The Man and his Shadow is not located here by chance. As a child, Vincent Halflants cycled from Lubbeek to Aarschot. On this hill, which was then still undeveloped, he rested because from that spot he had a magnificent view of the Church of Our Lady.

Hydroliques, Glazed and unglazed, fired clay.

Entire series of playful tube constructions tell stories about connections in the desert. Links between prehistoric and, for example, Roman civilisation.

The Shroud, 2008

monumental sculpture. steel and lead. (0.70 x 3.60 x 0.70 m.)

The Shroud stands for death, not only of Christ, but of all of us. The core of the Christian faith. Through his death God shows himself in Christ as mortal man. But at the same time he brings hope of resurrection and eternal life.

The work of Vincent Halflants is at once traditional through its universal Christian meaning and contemporary through its sober simplicity and abstraction. The lead translates the weight of death. And yet, with its modest, soft shades of grey and blue, it has a certain lightness that lets it transcend the heaviness. Of all funerary representations the shroud is the most intimate. The most personal. The cloth envelops and veils the body of the deceased, hides it and shows it at the same time. The shroud refers to the crucifixion and the burial of Christ. The tomb was found empty on the third day. The shroud remained as a silent witness and as the only tangible object, together with the cross, and became a relic.

At the same time the shroud is the simplest, most modest and most ecological way to transport the deceased body. Sadly, we often see the shroud enveloping victims of wars and disasters on the news at the dramatic farewell of loved ones.

The man on the pedestal, watercolour by Vincent Halflants

Procréart.

Vincent Halflants was active for many years in the psychiatric institutions in Diest and Tienen. The doctors deliberately chose alternative therapies in which the patient could express themselves freely. The artist was deliberately chosen rather than the therapist.

Halflants chose an open studio where the “pupils” came and went freely to work whenever they wanted. Also outside regular hours. A freedom that lapsed with the arrival of new psychiatrists.

Halflants suggested themes, started from art history, showed the way in techniques. Rather than really imposing anything, he left the participants free. In this way he gained a lot of trust. Many regarded Vincent as a friend. In letters, poems and stories they told of their fears, their experiences. The guilt that weighed on them, “mistakes” they had made, relationships with fellow residents. Gradually it became apparent that their drawing and painting technique, their spatial insight and work evolved towards a less chaotic form. More grounded.

Many entrusted their work to Halflants so that he could keep it. From this the “Procréart” collection grew. After a large retrospective exhibition in 2018 at CC Het Gasthuis, the collection was taken into the Dr. Guislain Museum in Ghent.

Windekind – Leen Lybeer. a roll of lead containing the text of Windekind like a hidden story

Leen Lybeer made a podium of topsoil. A symbol of the inspiring hospitality they offered together for 10 years.

A certain summer solstice

A vertical pillar in the horizontal landscape. A pointer like an intruder, a link between earth and sky. 15 metres high. Almost invisible in overcast weather. Gleaming in clear, sunny weather.

A first summer solstice was placed at Speelhoven in 2006 on the occasion of the 10th Speelhoven, an annual exhibition in which artists showed their work in the landscape.

Vincent Halflants designed A certain summer solstice. As a lasting memento of the presence, for 10 years, of so many artists.

A link made, the circle is complete,

For centuries Schoonhoven and Speelhoven were connected. The oldest noble family, which lived in the earliest castle of Schoonhoven, owned the extensive estate, farm and lands of Speelhoven as their so-called country seat. The farm that supplied them with meat, vegetables and fruit. The present recreation estate previously belonged to Schoonhoven castle and was separated from it in the 20th century. The earliest history of Schoonhoven and Speelhoven goes back to the 14th century. Both the present castle of Schoonhoven and the main dwelling of Speelhoven date from the 18th century.

A certain summer solstice III creates a quiet link between the two estates. More a modest work of art than a monument, it is a sign. A resting point. A kind of hypnosis, as Vincent Halflants himself calls it.

A certain summer solstice III was realised by metal artist Filip Van Daele of Metalmorphosa. Metalmorphosa from Langdorp creates unique designs in metal with a specialisation in Corten steel. Unique craftsmanship and art go hand in hand.

metalmorphosa.be

With thanks to Josée Lehon, art historian, for the realisation of this section on Leen Lybeer and Vincent Halflants.