Camille Lemonnier

Born Mar. 24, 1844, in Ixelles; died June 13, 1913, in Brussels. Belgian writer and art critic; wrote in French.

Lemonnier graduated from the University of Brussels. Despite his affinity for naturalism, he was the mentor of the Young Belgium group. His first works were essays in art criticism, The Brussels Art Salon (1863; book 2, 1866), and a book about P. P. Rubens, Our Flemings (1869). Flemish and Walloon Stories (1873) deal with village life. The novel Male (1881) glorifies the richness of nature and freedom of instincts.

In his novels of the 1880’s and 1890’s, Lemonnier approached the basic theme of his era, the conflict between labor and capital —for example, in Bloodsucker (1886; in Russian translation, The Plant, 1922). Lemonnier’s last novels depict idyllic life in a semiprimitive commune: Adam and Eve (1899) and In the Cool Forest Depths (1900).