BRUSSELS, BELGIUM.- The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium present an extensive exhibition dedicated to the original and very personal work of Léon Spilliaert (Ostend 1881 - Brussels 1946), on view through February 4th, 2007. Sixty years after his death, it is suitable to make the point about the diversity of style, content and spirituality of those works which, although influenced by the spirit of the 'fin de siècle', will develop far beyond Symbolisme.

Spilliaert who prefers to follow his imagination nurtured on literary images, philosophical talks and social realities observed behind the screens, starts a career far from each academic education. His original interpretation immediately stands out in the dark wash-drawings of his first years when he painted sharp and acute compositions showing a sound analysis and a deep psychology. While taking a bright look at his surrounding world, he indulged in an intense retrospection from which he extracts visionary self-portraits. Spilliaert has acquaintances with the artistic movement of his time, confronting himself to the contemporary painters as well as writers, like Emile Verhaeren, Maurice Maeterlinck, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, Odilon Redon, Edouard Vuillard, James Ensor ... He is the precursor of a geometrical abstraction, a constructed and colourful Expressionism, a Surrealism mixed up with images and at the same time he redefines a vision of the space inspired by Japanese engravings.