Mosa Mystica: painter Koen Broucke is tempted to visit Waulsort (Geel)

Early spring blossoms color the gardens in the Rue des Villas as we make our way to Koen Broucke’s Villa des Roses. It is one of the Belle Époque houses that gives this street in the center of Waulsort its stately appearance. One more impressive than the other, but they all remind of a mundane past, in which wealthy industrialists from Brussels spent their holidays here at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. In chic hotels along the Maas, but also in large summer villas with turrets and covered terraces, often in cottage style. It is hard to believe, but today the region is among the poorest in the country.

Koen Broucke accidentally ended up in Waulsort for the first time in 2013. “Together with writers Pascal Verbeken, Koen Peeters and Peter Holvoet-Hanssen, I undertook a pilgrimage for a book to the village of Miavoye, the place where Paul van Ostaijen died in a sanatorium in 1928 from the effects of tuberculosis.” The group would complete the last part of the journey on foot and got off the bus in Waulsort. Broucke: “I immediately felt connected to this place. Here you can still touch history. We entered the then dilapidated and now demolished Grand Hotel Regnier along the Maas, there was still an abandoned piano on the stage of the concert hall. When I walk down the street here, I can still feel the walls of the abbey that was founded here by Irish monks in the early Middle Ages. It is also special that the village is almost completely embraced by the Maas. The river brings movement to the landscape and peace to my mind. Nowhere have I felt as at home as here.”

“The river brings movement to the landscape and peace to my mind. Nowhere have I felt as at home as here”

Koen Broucke

Artist

Yet it will not be until 2018 that the artist moves from Boechout to his Villa des Roses. Since then, the painter has been commuting between Waulsort and Ostend, where he found love, a city where artists are at home and the sea is nearby. “The water there also intrigues me. And Ostend, like Waulsort, is a damaged Belle Époque place. All those huge hotels and beautiful houses, they were also typical for the Queen of the Seaside Cities.”

The First World War brought an abrupt end to the fairy tale along the Meuse. Tourism would recover moderately in the interwar period, but things went downhill after the Second World War. With the rise of mass tourism, more Belgians opted for a holiday abroad, and the hotel sector in the region fell into decline. It was the beginning of the decline and also visible impoverishment of the region. Although there has been a cautious revival of tourism for over ten years now, especially since a number of architectural gems in the village have been purchased by enthusiasts – often Flemish – who have carefully restored them.

Expo and walking guide

Waulsort and the Maas, Ostend and the sea, these are two constants in Broucke’s work. The exhibition in the historic Halle in Geel focuses entirely on its new home in Wallonia, and shows on three floors the artistic harvest of five years of walking and observing in the valley of the Upper Meuse, the winding stretch of the stream between Namur and the French border.

Mosa Mystica is the somewhat mysterious title of the exhibition. Broucke: “By mystic I refer to the ancient history of Waulsort, it also contains the word fog, and it is the fog on the Maas in its many guises that is so fascinating here. There are also many mysteries about the village’s past, especially about its medieval history.”

Anyone who visits Koen Broucke’s exhibition in the Halle will discover paintings by Waulsort in the fog and snow on the ground floor, works from the abbey (the current castle), the villas and the hotels are collected on the first floor, and on the On the second floor you can dream away in the summer landscapes, the panoramas… that the artist manages to capture masterfully. “On this floor I combine my work with that of predecessors who painted the Maas in the landscape here in previous centuries.”

One of them was François Roffiaen, who unwittingly laid the foundation for luxury tourism in the region. You can read exactly how that went in a historical walking guide in which Koen Broucke takes the walker along two routes through the rich history of Waulsort. The artist’s beautiful color illustrations make this gem a collector’s item that invites you to a summer trip to this wonderful village along the Maas, where perhaps precisely thanks to the standstill, so much beauty from the past has been preserved.

Mosa Mystica – Koen Broucke, De Halle, Markt 1 in 2440 Geel, 014/56.66.66, 27/4 to 16/6, Fri-Sat-Sun 10am-5pm. The accompanying walking guide Mosa Mystica can be purchased for 17 euros during the exhibition.

Piano concert and film performance

Koen Broucke is not only a painter, but also a gifted pianist and writer who combines his talents very naturally in fascinating performances. He himself says: “My added value is that I paint like a musician and play the piano like a painter. When I rehearse, the paintings are always around me. I play the images and paint the music.” Broucke’s concerts are always an experience. You can see the painter at work on the piano in the De Werft theater on June 16.

This triggered photographer Tijs Posen to follow the man and artist in Koen Broucke with a camera for more than two years. The film is an at times poetic time document in which you travel with Broucke, to the sea, the Maas, his studio, his walks and of course the places where he expresses his art. The film with the strange title The dogs will keep barking will be premiered on May 5, followed by a conversation between journalist and writer Eric Rinckhout with the artist.

Film & Artist Talk with Koen Broucke and Eric RinckhoutCC de Werft, Sun 5/5, 2 p.m., premiere of the film The dogs will keep barking by Tijs Posen about the life and work of Koen BrouckeFinissage, concert Het Miljoenwith Koen Broucke on the piano, CC de Werft, Sun 16/6, 11 amReservations for film and concert via www.dewerft.be