Louis Dubois (painter)

Louis Dubois, a Belgian painter, was born in 1830 in Brussels. He painted both landscapes and portraits, and occasionally genre and still-life subjects. In his style he was naturalistic in the extreme, his portraits having much of the vigorous life and colour of Frans Hals.

Louis Dubois belonged to a group of artists who, in the style of the second half the 19th Century, rebelled against the traditional painting of the past in favor of the style of this period. With the painters Théodore Baron, Louis Artan, Edmond Lambrichs, F. Foudin, on March 1, 1868, he became one of the founders of La Société Libre des Beaux-Arts, the society was officially established in 1868 as "Comité de Salut Public revolutionnaire, pour la libération de l'Art" according to Lucien Solvay. Rebellious such as those in the school of Courbet, they scorned the rules of the Academy and the aesthetics currently accepted; the artists of the "Free Society for the Fine Arts" freely and uniquely interpreted nature and reality, without following a common discipline, and stated their motto: "Liberté et Sincerité" and thus started a vehement controversy.

To make known and spread their realist philosophy, in 1871 they created "L'Art Libre" an art and literary journal under Leon Dommartin's direction; it was published on the 1st and 15th of each month (the first was published on December 15, 1871).

Louis Dubois, as the principal illustrator and the only painter-editor, was the most argumentative.

Under the pseudonym "Hout" (Dutch translation of Dubois), in his alert, precise style, he let flow his caustic spirit. In his stories, he criticized traditional painting, in his well-respected lampoons, he spoke from the perspective of good sense, logic, sincerity, truth.

On January 1, 1872, he published under the title "Les Biographes et les Biographies" a spiritual critique of his professional enemies, The Romantics of the school of 1830 (published again in "L'Art Moderne, Revue artistique des Arts et de la Litterature" No 24 of the 4th year, Sunday, June 15, 1884.On February 1, and March 1, 1872, "Le Peintre d'Histoire" spoke against past painters of the so-called "Modern Era." On July 15 and August 15, 1872, "Du Portrait" criticized official portraits on natural skins. On September 15 and October 1, 1872, in his article "Du Procédé" he said, "paint as you like . . . provided that you use true tones, in the right places."

On February 11, 1873, after 10 years of publication, the Review underwent a transformation, expanding under the title "L'Art Universel"; Camille Lemonnier became the director. "Hout" the published an article "A propos des peintres du rire" (Frans Hals, Jordeans, Jan Steen, the triad of painters of good spirits).

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