Roger Raveel: Providing a New Vision of the Complex Rural Landscape

Roger Raveel is considered one of Belgium’s major artists after World War II. Mainly studied as
the founder of de Nieuwe Visie (the New Vision), a stylistic movement adjacent to pop art, or as
the artist who was only interested in depicting his rural birthplace, Raveel’s environmentalist
approach, however, is still insufficiently recognized in contemporary art studies. It is crucial to
not separate Raveel’s oeuvre from the period in which Belgium was falling victim to the chaotic
suburbanization of the landscape. Inspired by the slow modernization of his homeland, Raveel
depicted modernizing changes with great interest. Yet, he detested them when they were implemented
with an unthoughtful, consumerist driven speed because this resulted in the reduction
of the rural complexity to a monoculture. I, therefore, argue that Raveel’s practices lean
towards what scholars define as sustainable or environmental art. In this text, I firstly elaborate
on these interpretations of art which contribute to experiencing being a part of the transdisciplinary
networks of nonhuman and human actors that perpetually form our environment.
Secondly, I focus on the ecological awareness that typified the timeframe when the New Vision
was developed. Thirdly, I discuss how Raveel disseminated environmental aspects, sometimes
intentionally, sometimes rather subconsciously, through selected case studies. By using bright
colors, incorporating mirrors and organic materials and honing a painting style, switching from
hyperrealist to abstract, the artist disseminated the ungraspable, complex constitution of an
everyday environment through the interactions between natural and cultural things. Through
this heightened awareness of all things and depicting their “cosmic charge” Raveel managed
to both infuse the mundane into his art and highlighted the infinite aesthetic pleasures that
result from observing the complex rural village. This is space which his modern peers neglected
because they thought they control it and perceived it as artistically redundant or insignificant.