Joseph Lies, The Enemy Approaches, 1857

by Atelier Liesjes

A crowd has gathered in the shadow of a village with a tall, slender church tower. On the left, men wearing hats and carrying sticks are huddled together; at the front stands a boy with a drum at his side, and a man with a stick is sitting on the ground. In the centre, a young man in a pale yellow suit and a wide black hat steps forward, his hand on the hilt of his sword; beside him, a young woman in a white smock folds her hands and looks away in alarm, whilst a woman wearing a white hood and with a red scarf draped over her shoulder points to the right with outstretched arm. On the right, a mother is fleeing with a child clinging to her, next to an old man with a black hat and walking stick; a boy is running away across the yard. Behind the houses with thatched and tiled roofs, pollarded willows and flowering bushes stand in the mist. Lies chose the moment of the announcement, not of the battle: the tension lies in the pointing arm, the fearful glances and the hesitant posture of the young man standing before his village. The scene is composed like a nineteenth-century history painting, with a crowd spreading out widely as it moves from left to right across the picture, and with a palette of golden brown, olive green and grey reminiscent of the Old Masters. The clothing is reminiscent of the sixteenth or seventeenth century, but the emotion is timeless: fear, defiance and the sudden realisation that danger is close at hand. Joseph Lies (Antwerp 1821 – Antwerp 1865) was a Belgian painter who trained at the Antwerp Academy and made a name for himself with historical paintings and village scenes. He worked in the Romantic tradition of Hendrik Leys, with a keen eye for costume, folk customs and dramatic composition.