Willem Bataille

Born in Brussels in 1867, Willem Bataille was a painter of figurative works, seascapes and landscape. He graduated from the Molenbreek and Brussels Academies, after when he became a teacher at the Industrial College at Schaarbeek. The countryside of Campine and Flanders provided the inspiration for his unique works, and as a result he was often known as "The bard of Flanders". He painted his landscapes with suppleness and verve, and often a bright light floods the darker corners of the nature he chooses to depict. Bataille died in 1933, in Schaerbeek.