The First Belgian Divisionist

If the British ancestors of Alfred William Finch (1854-1930) had moved to Paris instead of to Brussels in 1818, the artist might be better known today. But he would not have become Belgium's "first divisionist painter"in 1888, according to Emile Verhaeren. And if Finch had been able to earn his living from painting, he might not have moved to Finland in 1897, a place even more remote from Paris, center of the 19th century art world.

It was the young Willy Finch who invited James McNeill Whistler to join the first exhibition of Les XX in 1884. During numerous visits to Great Britain, Finch began working in ceramics. Fellow artists Anna Boch, whose father was in charge of Keramic Pottery at La Louviere, got Finch a job as a painter-decorator. For this reason he was invited to direct the ceramics department at the Iris Company in Porvoo, Finland. Finch also promoted the work of painters he admired, like Whistler and his divisionist inspiration, Paul Signac.
A Box at the Theater from 1896 may be Finch's best-known work, but the inclusion of human figures is atypical. Look closely, though, and you will see divisionist techniques at work. Clothing and upholstery are rendered in a series of lines in complementary colors. The armchair appears dark but is actually a mixture of greens and oranges.

In a few short productive years, Finch created a satisfying body of work. These paintings exert a strong horizontal pull through the artist's long foreground views. This broad foreground gave Finch space to work divisionist magic before our eyes. Magic is a good word for the technique, based on theories of visual perception that have proved somewhat lacking, scientifically.
The wonder is that a technique so painstaking resulted in works that quiver with movement. The sheep are wandering off the road, the tides are coming and going, the shadows are moving across the fields, as though we were there watching. You can imagine that you see the sun's movement.









Images:
Box At TheTheatre, 1896, Belgian Royal Museum Of Fine Arts, Brussels.
Decorative Tile, undated, Ceramics Museum, Ardennes, Belgium.
Country Road By The North Sea, 1888, Turku Art Museum, Finland.
The Road To Nieuport, 1888, Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
Haystacks, 1889, Belgian Royal Museum Of Fine Arts, Brussels.
The Channel At Nieuport, 1889, British National Gallery, London.
Orchard at La Louviere, 1890, Finnish National Gallery Of Art, Helsinki.
The Cliffs At South Foreland, undated, Finnish National Gallery Of Art, Helsinki.
Sunset Landscape, 1892, Turku Art Museum, Finland.