Jan van Beers

Today I thought I would share some art from Belgium painter Jan van Beers (27 March 1852 – 17 November 1927), his hyper realistic work is really intense, a strange mix of romantic women, mainly leaning, grotesque portraits and vivid colours.

I have selected a few that drew me in. Such intensity of colour and an almost 3d nature to his paintings.

This style of realism actually caused controversy, in 1881 a painting of van Beers, ‘Sirene’ was suspected of being a photo-peinture, a photo painted over a photograph rather than a painting as he claimed. A court case began and the notoriety actually made it so this relatively unknown artist could sell his paintings for large sums of money. Eventually he was proved an ‘honest man’ so perhaps it worked out for the best!