Gaston Haustrate was among the Belgian 'Sillonists', a group of young artists trained at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts that formed around 1900 as a reaction against Impressionism. Primarily they sought to take painting back to a more realistic style. Haustrate painted precisely what he saw, rendered in a beautifully layered and harmonious, bright palette. Besides landscapes he also painted both interior and outdoor genre scenes, portraits and townscapes.