“ ‘Vous êtes un fanatique, oui – j’en suis un aussi.’ The position of Flanders within the context of internationalism in post-war Belgium: the case of L’Art libre (1919-1922).”

The shock of the First World War resulted in a range of initiatives that, on the artistic
level, radically called into question a number of fundamental concepts. While the
function of new art was a topic that was discussed in different European countries,
the international orientation of each national art differed from country to country.
In Belgium, this was a complex issue. Notions such as ‘literature’ and especially
‘internationalism’ became the subject of a harsh battle for definition that was carried
out in several literary and artistic magazines. In this article, I look at how these terms
were defined within the artistic group surrounding the Brussels magazine
L’Art libre
(1919–22). I will give a general definition of internationalism in order to then elaborate
the extent to which it may come into conflict with a focus on local, Flemish reality. As
a social entity, Flanders did indeed fit into the internationalist program to recognize
suppressed nations. Yet as an artistic entity, its existence was more problematically
situated within a tendency for ever-increasing artistic internationalization. My analysis
will show a number of discursive and argumentative strategies used by writers and critics
in order to legitimate the idea of ‘Flanders’, both as a literary and as a social entity.