Landscapes of the Soul
_{James Ensor – Claude Monet – Léon Spilliaert}

The Arp Museum opens a window to the art world of Belgium and presents masterpieces from the renowned collection of The Phoebus Foundation in Antwerp. Under the title "Landscapes of the Soul", 28 paintings and sculptures from Impressionism to Classical Modernism are on display.

The exhibition highlights Brussels as a vibrant center of the avant-garde in the late 19th century. Belgian artists such as Léon Spilliaert, Théo Van Rysselberghe, George Minne, and James Ensor were in close interaction with their French colleagues and developed their own unique expressions of epochal and groundbreaking art movements such as Impressionism, Symbolism, and Fauvism. In dialogue with 27 works by French masters from the Collection Rau for UNICEF, ranging from Claude Monet to Paul Signac and Maurice Denis, a lively exchange emerges, bringing to life the mutual cross-fertilization of art scenes. The exhibition showcases this group's search for an existentialism deeply rooted in the human soul and fuelled by the dark, sometimes absurd intoxication of the Fin de Siècle.