Constant De Busschere Exhibition
This autumn, the Belgian Draft Horse Museum in Vollezele is launching a series of unique retrospective exhibitions. We kick things off with work by the animal artist Constant De Busschere—pieces that have almost never been shown before.
Born in Blankenberge in 1876, he took his first steps at the Bruges Academy, but at the age of 19, he honed his skills at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels under the renowned painter Joseph Stallaert—a Prix de Rome laureate and future director of the Brussels Academy. By the time he completed his training, he was a painter, etcher, and lithographer.
It is remarkable that, despite his mentors in Bruges and Brussels not having shown a specific interest in painting animals and their environments, Constant De Busschere made the distinctive choice to focus on painting humans and horses. He depicted a unique bond forged through hard labor on dockside quays, at construction sites, and on farms. He possessed an unparalleled ability to capture the interaction between horse and human, proving himself a master at painting the emotions expressed through a horse's body language. An observant viewer can discern fear, trust, defiance, or resignation in the horse's eyes.
De Busschere is unique in his ability to paint these emotions, lending his works a psychological depth often lacking in the art of other animal painters. Nevertheless, as a painter, etcher, and lithographer, he belongs to the distinguished lineage of Belgian animal painters who achieved international renown during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—artists such as Eugène Verboeckhoven, Alfred Verwee, Geo Bernier, and Alexandre Clarys, the latter being a fellow member of the Brussels art circle "Le Lierre."
This exhibition showcases the great diversity of Constant De Busschere’s palette and the special place the Belgian Draft Horse—as a loyal ally of humankind—occupies in his body of work.
