Introduction: Flemish neo-Renaissance and the construction of a “system of the arts”

In 1868, the successful architect and decorator Charle Albert (born Albert Charle in 1821) bought a piece of land in Watermael-Boitsfort, on the outskirts of Brussels. The following year, he started construction of a small castle for his family. An autodidact, Charle Albert designed the castle entirely by himself, and modestly called it his “Vlaams Huis,” his “Flemish House.” The Vlaams Huis was not only his personal Buen Retiro and masterpiece, but also an outstanding example of Belgian Flemish neo-Renaissance architecture. This revival aimed to rejuvenate a local interpretation of the Greco-Roman tradition and the Italian Renaissance. Flemish neo-Renaissance had started to be popularized in the 1840s, first as the subject of literary and artistic works such as El Maestro del Campo and Lord Strafford by Félix Bogaerts, illustrated by history painter Nicaise De Keyser with extremely accurate engravings showing the fashion trends and decorative arts of the period. Later, thanks to the publication of numerous books, manuals, and ornamental grammars, it began to be seen as a stylistically valuable model appropriate for industrial use due to its picturesque characteristics as well as for the intelligibility of its design, thus confirming the attribution of a certain educational vocation to the Renaissance period: its clear and innate harmonic rules easily lent itself to explicit decorative use.