Jan Frans De Boever

Jan Frans De Boever (1872 - 1949) was a Flemish Symbolist painter. He was very successful during most of his lifetime, and he considered himself as one of the best painters ever in his country. His megalomaniac character made him a solitary and isolated artist, whose work moved the last few decades to the U.S.A. where became a beloved artist. In about 1909 he modified his style radically, painting licentious women and prostitutes in morbid and bizarre settings. Skeletons, death and eroticism began to dominate his paintings. Semi-clothed women were depicted as servants of the devil, creating an atmosphere of evil. Man is shown as woman's toy, a languid object submitting himself to her slightest caprice. In 1914 he started to illustrate Charles Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs du mal" for the wealthy art-collector Speltinckx. Once he had discovered his own style, a form of Symbolism belonging to the decadent movement, he ignored ongoing artistic developments and drew his inspiration from literature, music and mythology. His paintings were very successful until 1935, when indirectly financial crisis struck. He reduced his prices in vain, but nevertheless continued to paint in the same fashion until his death in 1949.