15 November 2013

Under the light of an umbrella

At the Water Passage (1923)

The photographer Léonard Misonne (1870–1943) was a figurehead of the pictorialist movement in Belgium. He acquired a lasting reputation for landscapes, bucolic and timeless, a genre he would exploit throughout his life.


Bad Weather (1909)

Brussels Train Station (1938)

In the Lime Kilns (1942)

Marché aux fleurs, Grand Place, Bruxelles (1936)

Memory of London (1899)

Pluie à Namur, Belgique (1937)

Rue Royale (1933)


Ruts (1932)

Sheep (1905)

Sur la glace (1908)

Sur le barrage (1908)

The Beautiful Inland Waterway (1909)

The Oaks (1912)


Untitled (1934)

The images are characterized by a masterly treatment of light and atmospheric conditions, as summed up in Léonard Misonne's credo Le sujet n'est rien, la lumière est tout / The subject is nothing, light is everything.

While the subject matter remained more or less constant over half a century of activity, Léonard Misonne's chosen medium evolved towards more manipulated processes—from carbon printing until 1910-15, by way of bromoil until 1930-35, up to a final phase using mediobrome.