Jan Cockx was a Belgian

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 perhaps best known for landscapes, still life and harbor scenes.

Working with exuberant colors and mostly large-scale canvases, Cockx often painted simple subjects in vibrant ways. He defined space with color and often flattened the perspective. Some of his paintings appear to be influenced by Post-Impressionist and Fauve

Fauve

Fauve may refer to:* Fauve , American comics artist* Fauve , a short legged hunting breed of dog* Fauvism, a short-lived and loose grouping of early 20th century modern art* Fauve Software, a defunct software company...

 artists including Matisse and Gauguin. The pure, strong colors and distortion of form evocative of Fauvism

Fauvism

Fauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...

 are seen in a number of Cockx’s works.

World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 interrupted his studies at the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts and set back his fledgling art career. His first show, in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, was not until 1920, but was quickly followed by exhibitions in Antwerp (1922), Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

 (1923) and at museums in Maastricht

Maastricht

Maastricht is situated on both sides of the Meuse river in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands, on the Belgian border and near the German border...

 and Lyon

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

.

His artistic career included experimentation with ceramics, graphics and illustrations for Ça ira

Ça Ira (review)

Ça ira was the Belgian monthly magazine that featured avant-garde art, literature and politics. It was founded by a group of young artists, who came out of the smoking war-wrecked world of 1919 with a new élan. The title Ça ira comes from a song of the French Revolution...

, an art magazine group.

Selected works