Uylenspiegel

Uylenspiegel , the Newspaper of artistic and literary frolicking , is a Belgian weekly magazine which appears with Brussels of 1856 with 1863. Its creation hustled the conformism of the time.

Context

Coteries - as the Company of “Merry” animated by Charles De Coster starting from 1850 - existed already, under the sign of the zwanze of Brussels (liveliness). They constituted the fish pond of the editorial team of the Uylenspiegel . These young people, who attended for the majority the news Universit3e libre de Bruxelles, had in common imagination, the critical spirit, the taste of the mystifications and the pseudonyms. They were plain in the will to fight the middle-class spirit and to fustigate the clericalism. They wanted to also leave a trace of their productions and their activities. Thus under cover of imagination, the Uylenspiegel was going to synthesize their ideas on the existence, art and the literature, carrying out “the awakening spirits and literary tastes in Belgium” ( New Revue , 1852).
De Coster, which attended the taverns as much as the university, met Félicien Rops which it accommodated in the circle of “Merry” in 1851.

Creation

Félicien Rops, young draftsman and illustrator, wanted to be “painter of the modern life already”. The historians of the Belgian letters think that he is the principal founder of the Uylenspiegel . Concerned especially to involve a intellectual elite to share its ideas, Rops was surrounded by Karski, Hallaux and Scaron; then, of Coster, Leon Weber and Leon Jouvet. It is the February 3rd 1856 which the first number of Uylenspiegel left while announcing an intention criticizes turned towards the cultural field. Contrary to the other anarchistic student's newspapers of the time, this one wants to be libertarian: nor the body of a party or a man, the newspaper affirms his independence. The legendary figure of Uylenspiegel will be used as model in Rops itself: “Today I come to pass some bursts of laughter with the exposure of painting; tomorrow I will laugh elsewhere, but I will laugh, the laughter is my gasoline; formerly, I died of laughing, and if I reappear, it is to still laugh. ” ( Uylenspiegel with the Living room , 1857)

The newspaper will be before all that of the pleasure of living and “resistance”, that of Till Ulenspiegel which incarnates, with a critical intensity, the Flemish ideal against the Spanish order. The hero éponyme exceeds the nationalist figure to become the model of the free examination; he affirms himself “popular”, thus pointing out the round figures of Bruegel.

In addition to the spirit of the newspaper which marks the awakening of the Belgian letters, one will retain the illustrations of Rops, which in fact often of pullings with share. De Coster will collaborate in the Uylenspiegel during the first seven years of its publication: political writings and literary reflections. It was especially for him the possibility of presenting texts preceding the Legend of Uylenspiegel and the news which will constitute the collection of the Flemish Légendes .

Witness of its time, the newspaper takes the party of realism and defends the painters like Gustave Courbet, Charles Degroux or Louis Dubois. In its caricatures of the Living rooms of Brussels, Rops stigmatizes conformism with the public.

The musical chronicles take for target the management and the operation of the Theater of the Currency. Leon Jouret, in a new step for the time, defends the popular song there. In policy, in front of the aimings imperialists of Napoleon III, the newspaper becomes animated of a patriotic fiber.

In short, the Uylenspiegel testifies to the literary and artistic polemics to which the facetious spirit adds the humor of the caricatures. It is especially the reflection of the identity search for a country in full formation. It will be used as springboard with the following generation, that of the Young person Belgium and the Free society of the Art schools, that of Camille Lemonnier, Georges Eekhoud, Maurice Maeterlinck, Georges Rodenbach, Emile Verhaeren.

See too

Till Ulenspiegel

External bonds

the gallery of Félicien Rops: http://www.ciger.be/rops/

Random links:

Uylenspiegel

Context

Creation

Contents

See too

External bonds