Above: Ornate art nouveau details on the 1901 facade of Maison Saint-Cyr designed by architect Gustave Strauven (1878-1919) in Brussels.
I do not want to miss a good chance of getting us a slice of this magnificent African cake.”
King Leopold II of Belgium (1835-1909)
With its sensual plant motifs and curvilinear features softening the severity of brick buildings, for me, Art Nouveau always represented a bit of a whimsical revolt against the expected. The elevation of crafts in design refreshing after classical rigidity, similar to women beginning to abandon their whalebone corsets. Basically, encountering art nouveau always makes me smile. And Belgium is regarded as its birthplace.
In 1884, the silver-tongued King Leopold II (1835-1909) managed to convince the leaders of a 14-nation conference in Berlin that he, individually, should be trusted to manage the civilization of the Congo and to prevent expansion of the slave trade. Maybe it was simply a matter of semantics: slave trade is not the same as forced labor?
Despite bestowing the name for the vast territory of The Congo Free State, King Leopold allowed his new fiefdom no free trade. All exports from the Congo were required to pass through his trading companies. Essentially, a personal monopoly controlling incredible resources, and, perfect timing, with rubber suddenly in high demand.
In the late 1800s, there was an explosion of wealth in the major port city of Antwerp and the capital, Brussels. With Belgium already renowned as a center for diamonds, the existing class of wealthy merchants was bolstered by ship builders, freighters and others enriched by imports from the Free Congo. These were the chosen ones who invested heavily in King Leopold’s unbridled and unmerciful harvest of the natural resources of his new kingdom.
Above: Art nouveau features on buildings in Antwerp.
It is not the flower that I like to take as a decorative element, but the stem.”
Architect Victor Horta (1861-1947), “The Work of Victor Horta,” Ella Comberg, ArchDaily
The nouveau riche needed showy homes befitting their status, a boon for an emerging creative crop of architects. These architects prided themselves on lines inspired by nature over rigid architectural dogma, and Free Congo provided a host of new natural resources to employ. The style became known as Art Nouveau, or Congo Style.
Above: Art Nouveau features in Brussels, including (bottom left) a portion of the facade of Hotel van Eetvelde, designed by architect Victor Horta.
The Style Horta attempted to be all pervasive, closed to outside influences and affecting every detail from brass hinge to mosaic floor. Quite literally one senses Horta’s hand in every part of the interiors, they are worlds unified by an artistic genius, and quite perturbing in their sense of isolation.”
David Dernie and Alastair Carew-Cox, Victor Horta, 1995
Gesamtkunstwerk – a building as a total work of art. Horta’s complete control, from floor tiles to glass dome, is evident in the 1895 house and offices the architect designed for Edmond van Eetvelde (1852-1925) in Brussels. Van Eetvelde served as the first General Administrator of the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Congo, and, as such, had the resources to allow his architect access to the bounty of exotic woods now flowing out of the Free Congo.
Above: Architectural detailing of the interior of Hotel van Eetvelde, designed by Horta.
King Leopold II viewed the Brussels 1897 International Exposition as a propaganda opportunity to promote the benefits of his ownership of Free Congo. He had an entire Art Nouveau palace in Tervuren Park (now the Africa Museum) to exhibit the colony’s products, applications for them, geological specimens and exotic mounted animals.
The “human zoo” of Tervuren: “Three fenced ‘villages’ were created…. 267 Congolese men, women and children were forced to come and occupy these villages…. A fourth… where Abbot Van Impe ‘educated’ and ‘civilised’ young Congolese people.” – Africa Museum
1897 photograph by A. Gautier, collection MRAC Tervuren
The word ‘ivory’ rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse.”
“The Heart of Darkness,” Joseph Conrad, serialized in Blackwood Magazine, 1899
Van Eetvelde was among those who strived to ensure the colonial exhibition of the exposition was successful, including a Hall of Honor showcasing 50 ivory works. The centerpiece of the hall was jeweler Philippe Wolfers’ “Caress of the Swan,” an ivory tusk vase sensuously embraced by a bronze swan.
Above: Images of Art Nouveau and Art Deco collection now housed in the Art and History Museum.
Of course, the wealthy needed fashionable accoutrements, and Free Congo provided jewelers with a whole new palette of colorful gemstones. Horta designed a luxurious store on Brussels’ Rue d’Arenberg for the Wolfers Brothers Jewelers, and all of the architect-designed display cases are now found in the Art and History Museum. Seems my eye was drawn more to their contents than Horta’s works.
Above: Images from Wolfers Freres Jewelers exhibit in the Art and History Museum.
A house must reflect its dweller’s life and be his portrait.”
Architect Victor Horta
Hotel van Eetvelde certainly reflects the wealth and success of its owner, particularly in Horta’s incorporation of exotic woods from Free Congo. What the original owner probably would not care to be reflected is the introductory exhibition focusing on how the patrons of Art Nouveau architecture gained their fortunes. The entrance to Hotel van Eetvelde is through this LAB-AN gallery, with images of slain elephants, piles of tusks and men whose hands were severed for failing to meet their ivory quotas.
Above top left: Photograph of Edmond van Eetvelde and displays in LAB-AN gallery in Van Eetvelde House Museum.
International pressure mounted for Belgium to rein in the atrocities allowed in the Congo by its monarch. Emerging photographs documented starving populations, their immense poverty and draconian punishments inflicted on any refusing to work or failing to meet quotas. Leopold extended no humanitarian assistance to the Congo; his sole goal during his 23 years of ownership appeared personal enrichment. By some estimates, more than half the native population was wiped out during his rule.
“Then all of a sudden came the crash! That is to say, the incorruptible kodak—and all the harmony went to hell! The only witness I have encountered in my long experience that I couldn’t bribe.” – King Leopold’s Soliloquy, Mark Twain, 1905, reproduced by The Gutenberg Project
“Foot and Hand of Child Dismembered by Soldiers, Brought to Missionaries by Dazed Father.” Photograph taken by Lady Alice Seeley Harris, May 15, 1904.
As King Leopold II finally turned his personal ownership of the Congo Free State to the Belgium government in 1908, he ordered truckloads of related records burned.
I will give them my Congo, but they have no right to know what I did there.”
King Leopold II
Not knowing is like visiting a Southern plantation without a thought of the enslaved who built it….
The Democratic Republic of the Congo would not gain its wobbly independence until 1960, and the United Nations’ peacekeeping efforts are ongoing.