Portret van Josef Geirnaert 1840 - 1842

Jacobus Ludovicus Godinau made this small pencil drawing of Josef Geirnaert sometime in the mid-19th century. The portrait gives us a glimpse into the social circles of 19th-century Belgium. Geirnaert was a writer and a teacher, and Godinau moved in similar bourgeois circles in Ghent. In Belgium at this time, the academies were crucial institutions in the art world, providing training, patronage, and exhibition opportunities. The Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, where both men lived, played a huge part in defining artistic styles and providing a venue to display art to the public. This drawing gives us a specific sense of how artists and intellectuals presented themselves in that era. Careful research into the archives of the Ghent art world might tell us more about the relationship between these two men and the dynamics of the cultural institutions in which they worked.