Landscapes of the Soul
_{James Ensor – Claude Monet – Paul Signac}

For the first time in Germany, the Arp Museum is presenting outstanding masterpieces from the Belgian collection of The Phoebus Foundation. Under the title “Soul Landscapes”, around 30 of these paintings and sculptures from Impressionism to the beginning of Classical Modernism, which have not been accessible to the public until now, will be presented.

The exhibition sheds light on Brussels as a vibrant center of the avant-garde in the late 19th century. Belgian artists such as Théo van Rysselberghe, George Minne and James Ensor cultivated an intensive exchange with their French colleagues and found their very own expressions of the epochal and groundbreaking art movements that culminated in Impressionism, Symbolism and Fauvism. In dialogue with 30 works by French masters from the Rau Collection for UNICEF, from Claude Monet to Paul Signac and Maurice Denis, a lively exchange is created that brings the cross-fertilization of the art scenes to life. The exhibition shows this group's search for an existentialism that is deeply rooted in the human soul and was fueled by the dark, sometimes absurd intoxication of the fin de siècle.