Artist Colonies in Belgium

In Belgium, which borders the south of Holland and the north of France, the influence from Paris could be observed in the local art scene, the ideas of the School of Barbizon were also soon adopted there.
The small town of Tervuren near Brussels became the "Belgian Barbizon", as it was the place where the "School of Tervuren" formed around Camille van Camp and Hippolyte Boulenger in the 1860s, other artists such as Théodore Fourmois, Joseph Coosemans, Edouard Huberti, Alphonse Asselbergs, Jules Montigny, Jules Raeymaekers would soon follow. This first generation of the "School of Tervuren" preferred a dark and broken coloring and turned especially to realistic pleinair painting; greatest results were achieved by Hippolyte Boulenger with his casually drawn paintings. The second generation of the "School of Tervuren" managed the transition to Impressionism with Jean-Baptiste de Greef, Willem Vogels, Franz Courtens, Isidoor Verheyden, Adolphe Hamesse and others. However, the school's importance ceased after 1910.
Besides the "School of Tervuren", without any doubt Belgium's most important artist colony, other place attracted Flemish landscape painters as well, for instance Kalmthout with its heaths was depicted by Adrien Joseph Heymans, Isidore Meyers and Jacob Rosseels as "l`école du gris", named after the grayish coloring of their early works. Other artist colonies formed in places such as Anseremme, Genk and Mol in the second half of the 19th century, which would also bring forth important works. The most important effect on Belgium Modernism in the 20th century was achieved by the "School of Laethem", an artist group that congregated in the small village of Sint-Martens-Latem.