La bibliophilie en Belgique autour de 1900
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Bibliophilia in Belgium was copied from the French model. The Bulletin du bibliophile belge (1845-1865), followed by the Bibliophile belge (1867), was the Belgian equivalent of the French Bulletin du bibliophile published since 1834 in Paris by Techener under the aegis Charles Nodier. Several small societies met in the principal cities of the country and it is one of these which was responsible for the celebrated hoax catalogue of the fantasy library belonging to the comte de Fortsas. On the whole, these amateurs were more interested in early works than in contemporary book-production but they nevertheless did much to encourage the appreciation of beautiful books and collections. There are two major features of artistic book-production at the turn of the century. A limited network of amateurs who considered themselves to be aesthetes, sharing the inclinations and preoccupations of contemporary artists. This network was not only a structure for encouraging social contact, allowing the various members of the group to maintain their personal relationships, but also a forum for the propagation of new ideas, and for allowing known artists to be recognized as such and to be able to express themselves in public. The most important works of art were thus often due to the association of artists from differing specializations. They experienced this collaboration as a means of achieving a “ Gesamtkunstwerk”, on the model of Wagner’s operas. Many significant creations can be ascribed to the influence of these two dynamic undercurrents. I concentrate on three series of works of art which were to be of great aesthetic significance at the end of the century: the collaboration between Max Elskamp and Henry Van de Velde; the collaboration between Maurice Maeterlinck and George Minne; and the books of Edmond Deman (Mallarmé, Verhaeren, Khnopff).
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