JDB: Ieper, Maere....

RV Jules de Bruycker 1870 – 194 5 born Ghent, Belgium; died Ghent, Belgium Ieperen de Slechte Maere ( Ypres – the Grim Reaper ), 1916 etching Museum purchase: Letha Churchill Walker Memorial Art Fund, 1993.0319

Jules de Bruycker

1870–1945
born Ghent, Belgium; died Ghent, Belgium
Ieperen de Slechte Maere (Ypres–the Grim Reaper), 1916
etching
Museum purchase: Letha Churchill Walker Memorial Art Fund, 1993.0319

Jules De Bruycker dedicated most of his career to recording the old quarters of his native city of Ghent, Belgium, but he relocated to London during the First World War, where had made several virulent images about the War. The expatriate artist worked from photographs of the War that were published in the contemporary press. He also drew inspiration from earlier Flemish artists with whom he shared a satirical bent, notably, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525–1569).

On November 22, 1914, amidst heavy bombardment, a great conflagration consumed the medieval cloth hall in Ypres, Belgium. De Bruycker has captured the moment that the bell crashed to the earth from the burning tower of the cloth hall. Not long after, the remainder of the city was destroyed. De Bruycker has conflated the 1914 attack with the second battle of Ypres, in which the Germans used chlorine gas. This is indicated by the gas mask and bomb labeled “GAZ” in the lower left, and perhaps by the demon who is perched on the Reaper’s scythe, about to hurl a bomb.

De Bruycker dedicated this impression of De Slechte Maere to his wife. Later he also inscribed it with the dates “1914–1918 1939–1940” in clear allusion to the second occupation of Belgium by German forces.
SG