Modest Huys artwork • painting • for sale Flemish landscape with a stream (probably de Mandel or de Leie)

Flemish Impressionist and Luminist Modest Huys began his career as a painter-decorator, but around 1891 he came into contact with the artistic movement surrounding Emil Claus, who convinced him to become a painter. Huys preferred to paint nature and the people living along the Leie River—the flax workers and the fairgoers—but he also created portraits and landscapes. While not a student of Claus, Huys was initially strongly influenced by him and was therefore considered part of the Sint-Martens-Latem art movement. During the interwar period, Huys increasingly developed his own style. Accentuated margins, blurred backgrounds, and colors that shifted from soft to dark, applied to the canvas in stark contrasts, much like the Expressionist Permeke.