White Farm
This conversation is connected to White Farm.
A long, low white farmhouse with a dark brown roof and white chimneys sits behind a green yard. Two green doors or shutters punctuate the white facade. A tall tree rises at the right, its trunk and sparse foliage painted in quick, dark strokes. A yellow-sided building is partially visible behind the farmhouse at the right. A few red marks in the yard suggest chickens. The sky is gray-olive, painted in broad, rough strokes. The paint is thick throughout — heavy impasto on the white walls, dry brushwork in the sky and ground. The whole painting is small and built from simplified blocks of color: white, brown, green, yellow, gray. De Smet was one of the three founders of Flemish Expressionism alongside Constant Permeke and Frits Van den Berghe. He fled Belgium during World War I, encountered German Expressionism and Cubism in the Netherlands, and returned to paint village and rural scenes in a simplified, blocky style.