History
It was founded on 28 October 1883 in Brussels and held annual shows there between 1884 and 1893, usually in January–March. No president or governing committee. The group was formed by 11 artists dissatisfied with the conservative policies of the organization L’Essor and the official academic Salon. L'Essor ('Soaring') was set up also in opposition to the Salon, but with a strong bureaucratic element of twenty Essorians comprising a governing committee. Octave Maus (lawyer, journalist, art critic) acted as the secretary of Les XX, which was free of stifling regulations. The extent of governing was done by a rotating committee of three which organized the exhibitions. In addition to the twenty members, twenty international invitees would also exhibit. During the exhibitions, there were also literary lectures and discussions, and performances of new classical music, organised from 1888 on by Vincent d'Indy, with from 1889 until the end in 1893 very frequent performances by the Quatuor Ysaÿe.
Octave Maus, Edmond Picard and Emile Verhaeren (Belgian poet) were the driving force of the associated review, L'Art Moderne, created in 1881. There was a close tie between art, music and literature among the Les XX artists.
Read more about this topic: Les XX
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“A country grows in history not only because of the heroism of its troops on the field of battle, it grows also when it turns to justice and to right for the conservation of its interests.”
—Aristide Briand (1862–1932)
“The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)