232 - Roger RAVEEL (1921–2013)

Roger RAVEEL (1921–2013) Verkaveling / Subdivision, 1984 Oil on canvas Signed lower right: "R Raveel" Dated on the back of the canvas 114 x 145 cm Provenance: Collection of a major Belgian financial institution, Brussels Exhibition: Knokke-Heist, “Roger Raveel: Recent Paintings,” Casino de Knokke, June 30–September 2, 1984, no. 57 (catalog, color reproduction, no page number) This 1984 exhibition at the Knokke Casino, organized by the Veranneman Foundation (label on the back of the painting), presented to the general public for the first time a collection of Raveel’s most important paintings from the early 1980s. Roger Raveel, a native of Machelen-sur-la-Lys in the Flemish countryside, spent his entire life there and, above all, depicted it in a truly unique way. Active during the postwar period, he witnessed the (sometimes tumultuous) transformation of his native Belgian countryside. A witness to the region’s modernization and the consumerism of the “Trentes Glorieuses,” and also eager to be a man of his time in his painting, he did not follow in the footsteps of the Flemish Expressionists by depicting the human-made products and structures of his era and region. Raveel was a painter of observation; he painted and drew what he saw—his surroundings—in a range of bright, primary colors that was uniquely his own. Everyday kitchen objects, an armchair, a cat, a vegetable garden, haystacks, herring on a plate, a potted plant, and the men and women of this rural world—all seemingly mundane—become subjects and stories in their own right. In the early 1950s, eager to immerse himself in nature, the artist began painting regularly outdoors. Raveel referred to this as a “bath in nature.” This nature could be a fenced-in garden, a roadside, a field, or the surroundings of a farm. Raveel gradually established the Nieuwe Visie (New Vision). Within this movement, which was uniquely his own, he developed a visual language in which figuration and abstraction, art and everyday life, nature and consumerism, and even painting and sculpture (through the incorporation of real objects) coexist. In the 1960s, a housing development called Tuinwijk was built near his home. The seemingly insignificant motifs associated with this verkaveling (housing development) became an important source of inspiration for him and subjects in their own right throughout his life: houses, walls, garden plots, laundry hanging out to dry, windows, fences… Here, our 1984 painting likely depicts a house in this housing development, recognizable by its typical sloping red roof, despite its geometric simplification. Raveel stated in 1974, “The square expressed a more linear aspect of nature—the presence of man.” If the painting consists only of spontaneously applied patches of color, one can certainly sense the presence of nature, but one will not have the impression that there are houses. Human presence is not perceptible in this way. But it is the case with the square. ” (Roland Jooris, “Gesprek met Roger Raveel,” in the catalog *Retrospective Roger Raveel*, Centrum voor Kunst en Cultuur, Ghent, 1974, p. 21) The simplification of forms, as well as the white space, are powerful tools for Raveel; the latter allows him to show the viewer only those elements on which their gaze has settled. Here, a house in the housing development, the Lys River, and the tree. The Lys River here divides the space in two: the foreground with the tree, which embodies nature, and the background with the house, which embodies human activity and presence. “Raveel prefers life in all its facets—a totality within which not only the village and the city, nature and technology meet, but also, from a broader perspective, the world of the senses and the world of the mind. ” (Hans Sizoo, *Het verschrikkelijke mooie leven*, *Roger Raveel Schilderijen 1934–1967*, Ladinon, 2003, p. 186)