ROGER RAVEEL - ENSOR : VIVE LA SOCIALE

SOME CULTURE...

Oil paint on panels (1976)

Roger Raveel concentrated on the interaction between painting and his environment: on the one hand we have the work of art which comes out of its frame and on the other, the surroundings which are incorporated into the painting. Consequently, the shape which unfolds on the extreme right hand side of the large painting is repeated on the tympanum above the escalator with this text: “Kom in het bos wonen/Bouwgrond te koop/met toelating om alle bomen te rooien” (Come and live in the forest/ Building land for sale/with the authorisation to cut down all the trees). In this painting Roger Raveel refers to the artist Van Eyck (see the Adam and Eve figures) and James Ensor (see the allusion to the painting “L’entrée du Christ à Bruxelles” (Christ’s arrival in Brussels), creating a work with a social impact. There is also an expression that is typical of Raveel: the figure looking in the painting, the only one to have contours, the “empty” figure, the strongly pictorial elements in the shapes of heads, coats, jumpers, trees and clouds, the addition of objects such as mirrors. “Vive la Sociale” is a piece that has now regained its social importance.