Alfred Stevens: Beginnings

"The Japanese Robe" by Alfred Stevens

"Alfred Emile Leopold Victor Ghislain Stevens was born in Brussels on May 11th, 1823. He father, a soldier, had been an aide to Prince William of the Netherlands at Waterloo. He was a keen if modest collector and dealer in paintings and drawings, and justly proud of his Delacroix watercolours. Alfred was one of four children. His sister Juliette died in childhood; his eldest brother Joseph became a successful animal painter, and his younger brother Arthur was destined to be an important art critic, dealer, agent and curator of the collection of the Belgian King, Leopold II.

Alfred did not make his public debut as an artist until the Brussels Salon of 1851 at the age of twenty-eight. Why so late? What we know for certain is that he was a student at the Bruxelles Academy under the tutelage of Navez, a faithful disciple of David during his exile in Brussels. He underwent a thorough, traditional training, with the emphasis strictly on drawing, so much so that oil painting was forbidden to students.

Nonetheless, in the absence of his teacher, Stevens got hold of palette and brush and painted an ideal head in oils. Navez returned and demanded to know 'the artist' who flouted the studio rules. Alfred was marched off by Navez to see his grandfather. With the teenager standing before his grandfather, Navez exclaimed, 'You have there a fine painter!' 

This oft-quoted event is important because it tells us, right at the onset, a fundamental truth about Stevens. He understood the need to study and to train hand and eye in the technique of draughtsmanship and painting. Forty years later, he would publish his thoughts on art 'Impressions sur la peinture,' and there we find, well to the front, 'You can only be a great painter if you are a master craftsman.' He enjoyed the physical act of painting, as a gardener enjoys the feel of fine soil in the hands, or a sculptor his clay."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Alfred Stevens" by Peter Mitchell.)