To evoke the universe of Jean-Baptiste Robie is to enter a peaceful world

where pictorial wisdom bathed in tradition reigns supreme.
Silent natures, bouquets of flowers, landscapes or seascapes,

Robie's work appears coherent in its entirety.

Serious and thoughtful, it is punctuated by lighter and descriptive compositions.

Easy to approach, the paintings can be read at length like a page from a journey

through the life of a particularly serene artist.
His workshop, located in the heart of Brussels, was located in the heart of a magnificent park,

vast and hilly, rich in multicolored flowers carefully chosen for the composition of his works.

Such a space, on his ancestors' own lands, offered him a real mental escape,

like the numerous expeditions that the artist regularly enjoyed.

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Great-grandson of farmers, grandson of a scrap dealer, son of a blacksmith,

Jean Robie was born on November 19, 1821, in one of these modest houses on Rue Haute,

at number 321 to be precise. His parents, Jean-Baptiste Robie and Marie-Catherine Mommaert,

both natives of Brussels, founded a family of eleven children, six boys and five girls.
It was in the dark workshop of the forge, located just opposite the Saint-Pierre hospital,

that little Jean was raised.

A painful, merciless childhood, widely described by the artist in his work The Beginnings

of a Painter where he evokes a harsh and tender upbringing, seeing himself working tirelessly in a deafening forge.

If wall graffiti constitutes his first works, more seriously, it is the creations of signs which reveal the talents of the young Robie.

Forge

From the age of 11, avoiding the forge, Robie painted on porcelain or glass, happy with the few pennies that this work earned him, which is why his father said to him one day “Be a painter if you can… but know that if it doesn't bring you anything, you will take up the file or the hammer again” (3). From that moment on, from 1832 to 1837, the very young man saw himself alternately as a building painter or artisan glassmaker, a period that was undoubtedly favorable to his artistic training. It was also in 1832 that there was a terrible cholera epidemic responsible for terrible devastation marking this period with the seal of hell. In her carnage, she takes Robie's mother and two of her brothers. “With the speed of lightning, the scourge decimated the dead ends, the alleys, and, in the cemeteries plowed from top to bottom, entire families were buried pell-mell” (4). From stage to stage, ragged and poor as a vagabond, the 17-year-old traveler was rejected from everywhere and ended up in a miserable place in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, rue de Charonne in Paris. Innocently, he lives in a thieves' den. Listening to the advice of a porcelain painter friend, he hastily escapes from this place of perdition. Far too young to face such dangers, Robie returns, miserable, hungry, walking whole days along endless roads, braving snow gusts and sleeping in sinister inns. After a deplorable retreat, he returns home, at the end of his resources, humiliated by his failure in the eyes of his stepmother. He will only stay a few months in the forge, existence there becoming intolerable. With death in his soul, Robie leaves the place this time for good.

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Left to his own devices, his talents as a porcelain painter allow him to survive by earning a few pennies. He will now be able to find accommodation, but still so modestly that he sleeps in a large white wooden chest which also serves as a wardrobe, due to lack of furniture. In this unusual bed, it lifts or closes the lid depending on the ambient temperature. Young Robie courageously began studies: history, literature, science, modern languages, music, botany. Drunk with knowledge, buying his works with meager savings, feverishly, the autodidact interweaves everything, without order or method: "a real intellectual salad, difficult to digest for a disoriented Fleming, knowing at most how to read and write... Those who , from their childhood, have completed all their classes, slowly, by degrees and sometimes reluctantly, do not understand the charm of such a rapid, absorbing initiation” (6).
Courage and will find their deep meaning here: of humble origins, Robie ranks among the men who have become ennobled through merit.

 

Subject to questions of fashion, painting on porcelain quickly fell into disuse, depriving the craftsman of a healthy livelihood. Far from being discouraged, finding the solution, Robie decided to exploit the new taste for wall decoration, fueled by the discovery of the sumptuous palaces of Rome, Genoa or Florence. Indeed, at this time, the bourgeoisie began to travel. This particularly profitable niche allowed the painter to undertake studies in Paris. In 1838, following the advice of the decorative painter Filatre, who came to Brussels to create opera sets at La Monnaie, Robie went to Paris to follow the courses he gave there. It was material difficulties that forced him to return to Brussels prematurely.
Far from being discouraged, he immediately began artistic studies. From 1838, we find him registered in the registers of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels for the courses of drawing, antique figure and perspective and in 1840 for the course of antique figure only. He thus attended the class of J.P. Van Eycken.
The salary obtained through the execution of wall decorations (although poorly regarded by artists according to Robie), allowed him to finally occupy a furnished room containing a real bed.

By chance, his neighbor is none other than Théodore Fourmois who teaches him certain notions of painting and advises him wisely. Poor at the time, he also made a living from the sale of his works, exploiting the vein of an auction room run by “a greedy shrew”. Robie joins him there. Very quickly, he spots the many English people in the room,  tourists coming to visit the Waterloo battlefield. He then imagined painting figures of Napoleon, full face or in profile, about twenty centimeters high.
To Fourmois' amazement, the Napoleons were already selling for 30 francs, while his landscapes were still only selling for 50 francs! It is a single Englishman who allows Robie to survive for a few months. But the departure of this amateur forces him to make new productions, driven by an imperative need for money.

 

 

“Make me something shiny, eye-catching.”

The director of the sales room then suggested that she create paintings of flowers and fruits: “Make me something shiny, that catches the eye: I know my audience, it will go like clockwork” (7 )
His first painting of flowers, signed R, was sold for 40 francs to a certain Captain M. who, smelling the qualities of the artist, quickly ordered a work from him at the price of 200 francs, with the intention of exhibiting it at the Salon from Brussels. He therefore advises him not to place anything in the small sales room.

Certainly, these first works first obeyed commercial requirements before responding to a need for expression, essentially exploiting his artistic talents, combining
necessity and inventiveness, emotion only arising at the end of a particularly
elaborated. Robie thus approaches the kind of paintings that will bring him fame and wealth.

It was at the Brussels Salon in 1842 that he appeared for the first time in an official exhibition. We will then find him there in 1843 and 1845.
In 1848, he won a gold medal for a painting of flowers. That year “There was only one flower painter at the Brussels show who was offline; we have appointed Mr. J. Robie.”
Encouraged, Robie participated in the triennial exhibitions in Brussels, from 1851 to 1867, and in Paris, in 1851, 1853, and 1855. “1855 brought together in Paris the largest exhibition attempted until then. All countries were invited to express themselves through works representative of their contemporary art” (9). Honors will follow success.

 

Named Knight of the Order of Leopold in 1861, he was promoted to Officer in 1869.
He exhibited in Brussels again, in 1875 and 1880. “From triennial salon to triennial salon, he continued his march until 1880, the year of his triumph; he then experienced the height of his glory. The government had decided to organize a retrospective exhibition of Belgian art this year. In order to give more solemnity to this national event, it was decided that this exhibition would take place in the new Palais des Beaux-Arts, rue de la Régence, the inauguration of which was to take place at the same time on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the country's Independence. The part that Robie took in it was the most dazzling demonstration of his superb talent.

 

This triumph earned him, on May 4, 1881, his promotion to the rank of Commander of the Order of Leopold” (10).

 

 

Sydney

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Robie has become a regular at exhibitions.

We see him participating in those held abroad, La Hayes and London.
As his fame grew, his horizons broadened.

He participated in the Sidney show in 1879,

with a painting of “Flowers and Fruits” of which there is a description

but too vague to be identified with certainty.

Considered one of the best still life painters,

both for composition and colors but also for the perfection of his pictorial technique,

he was awarded a silver medal. (11)
However, it was in Belgium that he found his greatest success.

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Chaussée de Charleroi

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In 1849, the proceeds from gold medals converted into ingots allowed Robie to acquire a piece of land located on Chaussée de Charleroi in Saint-Gilles. In 1873, he bought the neighboring plots. The whole will constitute a beautiful space of which he will make a wonderful garden, exactly where his ancestors once drove the plow.
“Hares always return to the environment where they were born, under the same mysterious impulse which brings the swallow back to the thatch where its nest was… Through the phenomenon of atavism, its ancestors transmitted to it great gifts: the love of the countryside and a taste for gardening. And this is how we begin by forging iron and end by cultivating roses” (12). 

  

This magnificent property could have become a public place if the urbanization work of King Leopold II had been fully realized. G. Stinglhamer and P. Dresse, in Léopold II at work, (13) relate that the King wished, upon the death of the owner, to preserve this park and transform it into a public garden (we know that the great town planner is the author of almost all the squares which give Brussels air and cheerfulness). Unfortunately, Leopold II died before the painter and the park was never built.
Preserved in the Prints Cabinet of the Royal Albert I Library in Brussels, a postcard represents the artist in his magnificent property.

Travel

Having become independent, well-off and honored, Robie gave free rein to the passion for travel which had already manifested itself, albeit timidly, during his teenage trip to Paris. It was the travels that made Robie a writer with strong descriptive qualities.
We already see him in Belgium spending a few days on the coast, in Ostend, every year.

More seriously, Robie will make numerous trips across Europe, Africa and Asia. His countless memories are assembled in collections abundantly illustrated with sketches and paintings made on site. He always returns loaded with an infinity of precious trinkets, weapons, trophies, fabrics, statuettes and idols with which he adorns his apartments transformed into an “Indian Museum”. In a chosen setting, decorated with Indian-style woodwork, he exhibited numerous objects forming a remarkable collection(16)

 

For Robie, the desire to travel responds to a deep and intimate need, most certainly encouraged by a fashion of the time. It is possible, in fact, that a good number of artists showed no fundamental transformation despite the splendor of the countries visited. With Robie, on the other hand, his travels transformed his vision, they radically changed his way of painting as well as his choice of subjects. If, throughout the years, Robie painted and repainted sumptuous bouquets of almost photographic realism, from the day he traveled, he literally launched into the representation of clearly impressionist, broadly sketched atmospheric landscapes, completely breaking with tradition still life. Amazed by the discovery of new lands, lush and exuberant natures, he flourishes in the revelation of grandiose landscapes and vast spaces. However, Robie will only exhibit his compositions of flowers and fruits, leaving an important part of his work in the shade: all the paintings created during his expeditions to the Orient. This is the reason why he will be described by all art critics as “an amiable flower painter” These trips enrich his existence while he carries out tireless activity. In 1890, during the session of January 9, he was elected corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Belgium in the Fine Arts class. He was elected full member on January 8, 1891 and on May 3, 1896, member of the National Biography Commission. On December 3, 1896, he was appointed member of the Finance Commission. He was also a member of the Steering Commission of the Royal State Museums of Painting and Sculpture. In 1898, despite his great age, the Class of Fine Arts called him to the directorial chair, succeeding Jules Thomas Vinçotte. During the annual public meeting in November 1898, he made a speech: Art and Light (18), the perfect literary justification of his work. Bedridden sometimes for long periods, participating less and less in the social life of the capital, he devoted himself to writing Urban Landscape (19), an endearing description of what he could observe from his bedside: his garden, his street, his neighborhood.

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It was at the age of 89, on December 8, 1910, that Robie left this land he had loved so much. According to his wishes, refusing academic honors as well as those attached to his rank of Commander of the Order of Leopold and that of Knight of the Orders of the Legion of Honor, no invitation was made and no speech was given. spoken at his funeral. Through his will, the artist details his last wishes:

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“To cover any eventuality, I do not want members of my family to take care of my funeral which I want without any religious ceremony; my friends Gustave Washer and Prosper De Wilde, are responsible for having my body cremated at the Père Lachaise Cemetery, in Paris; They are exempt from having any monument erected there for me.
My wish is that my ashes not be preserved. We will not send a circular; it will be enough to insert an obituary notice in the following six newspapers: L’Indépendant Belge, le Petit Bleu, l’Etoile, la Chronique, le Soir and la Gazette.
I decline military honors and anything related to funeral directors.
No speech will be made in front of my coffin: we are asked to send no flowers or wreaths...
Written in full by my hand on Wednesday November 25, 1903”

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