“Un art aux principes rationnels les plus anciens, aux formes les plus traditionnelles”: The Belgian Catholic Gothic Revival and the reception of the English Arts and Crafts Movement (1890–1914)

Abstract

Research into the Belgian reception of the English Arts and Crafts Movement has been mainly focused on the liberal-socialist artistic avant-garde of the turn of the century. Artists' groups turned to the production of objects of decorative art under the direct influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement, which contributed to the development of the so-called Art nouveau. This one-sided research focus, however, has obliterated the equally interesting reception and relevance of the English movement within other political and artistic milieus. A case in point is the Belgian catholic Gothic Revival, which shared certain roots with the Arts and Crafts Movement (Pugin), which shows a more or less chronologically parallel evolution (largely between 1860 and 1914), and which had from its inception a special predilection for the applied arts. Hence, it is the endeavour of this article to gauge the specific nuances of the catholic neo-Gothic perception of both Arts and Crafts values and of the continental avantgarde translation of these values, through the scrutiny of two of its central catholic artistic periodicals, Revue de l'Art chrétien and Bulletin des Métiers d'Art, in the period 1890–1914, which reveals a focus on the Arts and Crafts craftsmanship and traditionalism.