Jan August Hendrik Leys Enter a
feeling, not
a gallery.
Choose a mood and the room itself answers — the light cools or warms, the air changes pace, and only the works that carry that feeling step forward from the dark. Everything else recedes into shadow.
Jan August Hendrik Leys
Jan August Hendrik Leys: A Flemish Visionary Bridging Romanticism and Realism Jan August Hendrik Leys (18 February 1815 – 26 August 1869) was a Belgian painter and printmaker. He was a leading representative of the historical or Romantic school in Belgian art and became a pioneer of the Realist movement in Belgium. His history and genre paintings and portraits earned him a European-wide reputation and his style was influential on artis
ts in and outside Belgium. Leys was born in Antwerp as the son of Hendrik-Jozef-Martinus Leys and Maria-Theresia Craen. His father ran a printing business specializing in religious images printed from old copper plates. Henry Leys was not very interested in school but was very keen on drawing. His parents supported his proclivity and let him study under a furniture painter who lived next door. He began his artistic training at the An…