Minneapolis Institute of Art
The Dead City, Bruges (Die tote Stadt, Brügge)
Julien Celos
- Date
- c. 1911
- Medium
- Charcoal, pastel, and chalk
- Department
- European Art
- Institution
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
Cloaked in mystery and dwarfed by forbidding architecture, these two black-clothed figures are Beguines, Catholic laywomen who led quasi-monastic lives in communities called beguinages. The order thrived from the 1200s to the 1500s, with the beguinage often becoming a sanctuary for widows. In Julien Celos’s time, just a few of these communities remained and were seen as romantic remnants of the past. This image and its title were very likely inspired by Georges Rodenbach’s symbolist novel Bruges-la-Morte (1892). The author wrote that when Beguines circulated through Bruges, they seemed not to walk but rather to glide like swans. Belgium, Europe
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