Paul van Ostaijen, poet-word artist and pioneer of new art movements in Flanders

On 22 February 1896, at 53 Lange Leemstraat in Antwerp, Paul van Ostaijen was born into a Catholic family. 'Pol', to friends. At all the secondary schools he attended, his rebellious nature hindered him. Little could fascinate him and little did he bring off. From 1914 to 1918, he was town hall clerk, journalist for several daily and weekly newspapers and a student magazine, and active in Antwerp's art scene and nightlife. In his articles, he particularly praised modern French literature, German expressionism and Flemish painting and sculpture. In 1918, he fled to Berlin, accused of activism. A leaden period. His former faith in humanity gave way to utter nihilism, which he would later renounce, however. He returned to Antwerp in 1921: the charge of alleged activist acts was declared unfounded by the competent court and his name was cleared. After his military service and a short-lived job in a bookshop in Antwerp, he started the art gallery A la Vierge Poupine at 70 Rue de Namur in Brussels in 1923, which he discontinued after only a few years. His business, lectures and exhibitions had further undermined his already weak health, ravaged by pulmonary tuberculosis. After various medical wanderings, he died on 18 March 1928 at the small private sanatorium Le Vallon in the hamlet of Miavoye of the village of Anthée, belonging to the Namur municipality of Onhaye. Paul van Ostaijen received his final resting place on the lawn of honour at Schoonselhof cemetery in Hoboken.

In Flanders, Paul van Ostaijen paved the way for new art movements, especially humanitarian or romantic expressionism and Dadaism. His poems are pearls of rhythmic typography, musicality and free verse and deal mainly with fear, inner turmoil, technology, the metropolis, advertising and the masses. In his grotesques, he denounced all sorts of incongruities he noticed in his daily life. These included politicians, the church and sexual morality.

To understand his literary evolution, read successively: the collections of verses Music-Hall (1916), Het sienjaal (1918), Bezette stad (1921, the well-known typographical curio), Feesten van Angst en Pijn (1928) and Gedichten (1928, with Eerste boek van Schmoll, his last collection of poems in which his views are expressed to perfection).

Oh yes, whence his nickname 'zot Polleken'? One anecdote is telling. After seeing the British drama The House of Temperley (1913), he commissioned his tailor to make him a coat after the fashion of the English characters in the film, which was set in the 1870s. Complete with a hat made of otter fur, he walked the streets. His eccentric appearance earned him another nickname: 'Mr 1830'.