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EMILE VERHAEREN MUSEUM
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Emile Verhaeren (Sint-Amands, 1855 – Rouen, 1916), a Flemish poet of French expression, was one of the outstanding figures of the literary world. His innovative poetry and art criticism made him a spokesperson for the literary, artistic, and social life of his time. He was one of the prime movers of the symbolist movement, but, driven by his social and humanist conceptions, he interpreted this trend in an original way. A poet of the sprawling metropoles, he also set out to write poetry of vitality, composed love poems, and dedicated a sequence of five collections to Flanders, his homeland. Although he lived in Saint Cloud, near Paris, and Caillou-qui-Bique, in Hainaut, he cultivated a warm relationship with his native region, on the banks of the Scheldt.
Verhaeren enjoyed an exceptional reputation and maintained friendships with renowned artists and writers such as James Ensor, Théo van Rysselberghe, Auguste Rodin, André Gide, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Stefan Zweig. He undertook literary tours in Germany, Holland, Russia, Poland, or Austria and was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. During the First World War, he transformed himself into an ardent national poet and was photographed with King Albert. He died on November 27th 1916, in a tragic train accident at Rouen station. His work, translated into twenty-five languages, occupies an important place in world literature.
Even today, the poet Verhaeren is present in Sint-Amands, the village where he was born: his majestic black marble tomb stands on the banks of the Scheldt and the museum dedicated to him was built nearby. It presents manuscripts, photographs, bibliophile editions, as well as works by the likes of Théo van Rysselberghe, Léon Spilliaert, Georges Tribout, Louis Hayet, Constantin Meunier, Odilon Redon, Ossip Zadkine, Fernand Khnopff, Anto Carte, Henri Ramah, William Degouve de Nuncques, Boleslaw Biegas, Constant Montald, and Frans Masereel. The layout of the museum was entirely renovated in 2005, on the 150th anniversary of Verhaeren’s birth. Several tentacular tables reference the poet’s work and invite visitors to embark on an intimate discovery of his œuvre and world.
Emile Verhaeren Museum Emile Verhaerenstraat 71 2890 Sint-Amands Belgium www.emileverhaeren.be