Jenny Montigny, a Belgian Rediscovery

We strongly suspect you may never have heard of Jenny Montigny. We hadn't until recently, and indeed, even in her native Belgium she seems to have been largely forgotten for much of the period since her death in 1937. Until now. A large-scale exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent has put her back in the spotlight.  

As regular readers will no doubt have noticed, we do try to seek out neglected women artists, and we're pleased to say this is our second visit to a show on this theme in Ghent this year.  

Montigny was born in Ghent in 1875 into a prosperous, cultured family; her father was a professor of law and her mother was of Scottish stock. She drew and painted from an early age, but it's said that she decided she should dedicate her life to art when, on a visit to the Ghent museum at the age of 16, she saw Emile Claus’s painting The Skaters (which can be viewed just outside the entrance to the exhibition, in what's known as the Forum). A couple of years later, she began taking lessons from Claus. 

More than 200 of her paintings, pastels, drawings and etchings have been brought together for this show. Her work spans landscape, views of everyday rural existence, still life, motherhood and children. Very much Impressionist subject matter, though definitely tending towards the light-filled depictions that are the hallmark of Belgian Luminism, the movement led by Claus. 

So let's start with that most Impressionist of motifs, The Harvest. What could be more typical of rural life in late summer or early autumn? 

You're sure to have seen those haystacks painted by Claude Monet, and you may recall Camille Pissarro's version of the same theme. But put those to one side: This is the Jenny Montigny interpretation. Even on a small screen you can discern the texture of the paint and see how it blends to form the stacks, the stubble and the sky. Stand in front of it, then step back to experience how the paint and the colours merge. You really do revel in the light. 

There's no location for the harvest painting; it's somehow placeless and timeless (and many of the pictures in this show are undated). But most of Montigny's work depicts the area along the River Lys (or Leie in Dutch) south-west of Ghent, where both she and Claus lived and worked. Such as this Sunny Lane in Bachte-Maria-Leerne. 

A row of homes facing on to an open space that is shaded from the bright sun by trees. The predominantly pink painting has lovely, gently contrasting colours. It looks so pleasant that we felt we could move in here -- provided all mod cons were laid on and there were no trips to a well to fetch water or to the river to do the laundry.

But life in the Flemish countryside was often far from idyllic. Just look at this scene on an October Morning. 

Time to bring in the crops; you can see the haystacks in the fields. An apparently heavily pregnant woman, head bowed, pushes a wheelbarrow filled with greens or vegetables of some sort. She's already got four small children, it seems, and none of them has shoes or clogs on their feet. Montigny's use of the impasto technique (applying the paint thickly with a brush or palette knife) highlights the unevenness of the ground and gives solidity to the crops on the left, the clusters of foliage that shape the trees and the heavy sky. As you go around this show, you appreciate just how thick and textured the paint on many of her canvases is. 

There's a much, much lighter feel to this next work from three years later, in which she captured the freshness of a spring day. Bridge at Deurle (Sunlit Morning, March) has high water levels in the river and spring flowers brightening up the meadows. The soft colours, so pleasing on the eye, are complemented by the forms -- the curve of the river and the delicate trunks of the trees with their clusters of upper branches. Even the sky is a pretty pale blue, broken by almost dainty clouds.   

Distinctly reminiscent of Emile Claus. 

But let's head back now to school days, specifically St Joseph's School in the village of Deurle, just steps away from Montigny's studio. The classroom, the playground, the walk to and from school provided subject matter for the artist over decades. 

Those eye-catching wimples the nuns are wearing -- we discovered they're called cornettes -- certainly attracted the attention and comments of many visitors to the gallery when we were there. But we were moved by Montigny's empathetic depictions of the dozens of young individuals crammed into that classroom. Some are intently working on their own or with the teachers' assistance, a little group in the foreground are making a joint effort while the girl in the back row is resting her head and hands on the desk. It's so full of detail. The windows with the bare trees beyond form a beautiful patterned backdrop to this delightful scene.

In the undated work below, you can see how youngsters got to their classes. It's a lovely crisp spring day on the way Towards School. The washing blows on the lines that hang between the trunks of the blossoming trees. The colours have a fresh vibrant feel.  

The assiduous Montigny also painted the same scene in the rain, of course, and children walking home or sliding down a hill in the snow. 

The last paintings we want to highlight are of flowers -- a subject matter that you might certainly expect from many a woman artist. They are beautifully rendered.

The spikes of star-shaped flowers in shades of blue and purple with white stamens are unmistakably delphiniums. Montigny has emphasised or contrasted their delicately thin petals by thickly applying the paint above them to create a heavy canopy of leaves and dense blurred background that doesn't distract from the subject. 

The showstopper, however, is the very large The Begonias -- a canvas measuring 180cm by 245cm covered in all tones of pink.  

This mesmerising work from 1913 also has a wonderful texture; the paintwork is again applied incredibly thickly in places. You feel the sunlight on the plants and the workers who are lugging watering cans to keep the crop alive. It was hard work being a gardener. 

In contrast, Daffodils and Oranges is so simple but so attractive. The bright yellows stand out against the muted background.

Sadly, Montigny, the creator of these charming and often very cheerful pictures, suffered severe financial difficulties after the death of Claus in 1924. Her paintings became unfashionable and she had to rely on the support of her sister and friends. She died of cancer in poverty and her work was largely forgotten, overshadowed by that of Claus, her mentor. This show deservedly puts her back among the big names of early 20th-century Belgian art. 

Practicalities

Jenny Montigny is on at the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent until January 10. The museum is open from 0930 to 1730 Tuesdays to Fridays, from 1000 to 1800 at weekends and on school holidays, and until 2200 on the first Thursday of the month. Check the website for Christmas and New Year opening. Allow 75-90 minutes to see this exhibition. Full-price tickets cost 19 euros, and you can book online in advance here. 

The gallery is situated on Fernand Scribedreef, a half-hour on foot south of Ghent's historic centre and about 15 minutes' walk from the city's main Sint-Pieters station. There are four trains an hour to Ghent from Brussels on weekdays, taking less than half an hour from Bruxelles Midi, where the Eurostar from London arrives.

Elsewhere in the Museum, and in Ghent

The fine-arts museum has an extensive collection, spanning the centuries from Hieronymus Bosch to Théo van Rysselberghe. And you can also see the workshop where restoration continues until the end of 2026 on some of the panels of the fabulous Mystic Lamb altarpiece -- one of the world's great works of art -- by Jan van Eyck and his brother Hubert from Ghent's St Bavo's Cathedral. 

To view the whole altarpiece with the already restored panels in situ and the replicas of the ones being worked on, head north to the cathedral in the city centre. It's open from 0830 to 1730 Monday to Saturday, 1300 to 1730 on Sunday. An augmented-reality tour costs 16 euros; if you just want to see the altarpiece without the frills it's 12.50 euros. You can book tickets here. 

Images

Jenny Montigny (1875-1937), The Harvest, Private collection

Jenny Montigny, Sunny Lane in Bachte-Maria-Leerne, Private collection 

Jenny Montigny, October Morning, c. 1903, Private collection 

Jenny Montigny, Bridge at Deurle (Sunlit Morning, March), 1906, Chamber of Representatives, Brussels
Jenny Montigny, The Classroom, Het Kunstuur Collection

Jenny Montigny, Towards School (Spring), Private collection, courtesy Francis Maere Fine Arts, Ghent
Jenny Montigny, Delphiniums, Belfius Art Collection

Jenny Montigny, The Begonias (The Gardener), 1913, Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent

Jenny Montigny, Daffodils and Oranges, Private collection