Nieuw Leven, by his fellow townsman and friend P.G. When Vlaanderen, the successor to Van Nu en Straks, ceased to exist in 1907, Ceunis tried to use his magazine Iris to fill the gap. After a short stay in Germany, he planned to set up a magazine on his own, the fastest way to launch yourself or a new literary programme in the literary field. He thought he would like to become a visual artist, but first he would try to make a name for himself as a writer. He came into contact with students of the Ghent Academy who had moved in there and regularly sought refuge in absinthe. Together with Paul Kenis and others, Ceunis wandered through the Ghent beguinages and abandoned monasteries. Chic! Is it strange that artists who can think so sensitively can sometimes be so dissolute, often leading a life that is not very exemplary.’ His dream of becoming an artist is described in his diary of 1906, and it only grew stronger: ‘La vie de bohème is outrageously beautiful! An artist’s life – poverty – declarations of love in the attic – dancing at the fair – and in the end the girl dies. He attended German courses at the Van Crombrugghe Society and after working hours devoured the leading artistic and literary magazines in the library of Ghent University. The family story would have it that the Ceunises lost a great deal of capital and social status in a very short time. He then went to work in the printing house where his father also worked. Until the age of thirteen Ceunis attended Sint-Lievenscollege in Ghent. Gerard Ceunis was central to a number of these conflicts. He refused to take on the shared habitus of his contemporaries and in doing so sidelined himself several times over.Īt the beginning of the twentieth century the Ghent kuip (the old city centre) was the setting for a complex tangle of intrigues and friendships that often influenced artistic and literary positions. Other reasons are a lack of originality and not least his contrary nature.
Out of sight, away from literary history. Undoubtedly the most important is that he fled his homeland in 1914 to make a fortune in textile sales in England. There are several reasons why Gerard Ceunis (1885-1964) fell between the folds of Flemish literary history. It was Johan Daisne who wrote the piece in memory of ‘Uncle Gerard’, regretting that Flanders did not know its own history ‘and the men who helped make it what it is today’. In 1964 Vooruit was the only Flemish newspaper to pay attention to the fact: Gerard Ceunis had died in Hitchin, England. I hope my readers (and Professor Verbruggen) will forgive any mistakes or misunderstandings. The original article is in Dutch/Flemish, a language that I don’t speak, so I’ve had to rely on assistance from Google Translate for this English version. Entitled ‘De kronkelige paden van Gerard Ceunis’ – ‘The winding paths of Gerard Ceunis’ – the article gives a vivid sense of the range of Ceunis’ artistic and literary ventures and associations, and includes some fascinating photographs, which I’ve reproduced in what follows. The most informative overview of his life and work that I’ve come across so far was written in 2007 by Christophe Verbruggen of Ghent University. As I noted in the previous post, it is very difficult to find reliable information about Gerard Ceunis online, particularly in English.
0 kommentar(er)
