Marc Eemans comes into contact with the German Romantic, and Wagner in particular at the Royal Athenaeum in Brussels. He emerges as a well-read intellectual painter and writer. Via Geert van Bruaene, he meets Paul van Ostaijen, among others. As an artistic painter he experiments originally with a sense of the constructivist-abstract. He reads the first surrealistic manifest of André Breton and in 1925 aligns himself with the surrealistic artists Dali and Magritte, with whom he holds communal exhibitions.
In 1930 Eemans debuts as a poet with Vergeten te worden: 10 lijnvormen, beïnvloed door 10 woordvormen. He is taken by the influence of Symbolism and calls his poetry ‘Gnostic Surrealism’. In 1938 he publishes the volume of poetry Wola’s visioen.
His artistic and political stances during World War II lead to a break with Magritte and others. Because of collaboration, he is sentenced to eight year’s of prison term. In 1975, he loses a slander case about this from Marcel Mariën.
Eemans writes, in addition to poetry volumes, works about diverse subjects, such as modern painting and architecture. He publishes Anthologie de la mystique aux Pays-Bas.
Source: House of Literature, Antwerp
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