‘Puisé Aux Meilleures Sources’: Textual and Visual Strategies of Mid‐19th‐Century Architectural Historiography in Belgium

• Main Author: Ellen Van Impe
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Ubiquity Press 2015-12-01
• Series: Architectural Histories
• Subjects: A.G.B. Schayes, Auguste Schoy, architectural historiography, nineteenth century, Belgium
• Online Access: http://journal.eahn.org/articles/208

The Belgian architectural world of the 19th century has been considered a fascinating though little studied crossroads of influences. The same could be said of the architectural historiography of Belgium, which only established its independence from its powerful neighbours in 1830. Two of its canonical architectural historical publications, the 'Histoire de l’architecture en Belgique' by A.G.B. Schayes (1808–59) and the 'Histoire de l’influence italienne sur l’architecture dans les Pays-Bas' by Auguste Schoy (1838–85), represent two different ways of dealing with textual and visual material. This emerges from a precise analysis of context, authorial voice, use of sources and illustration media and relation to repertories of images such as private print collections. Typical of Schayes’s voice are the sparsely expressed personal appreciations and the many references to archives, literature and in situ observations, as if to prove every statement in word or image. Meanwhile, he rarely refers to his authoritative position as ‘national archéologue’ (as curator of the first national collection of 'antiquités'), nor to his collection of prints and engravings. Schoy, on the contrary, does not shy from emitting personal opinions and boasting about his precious collection, his broad knowledge of rare manuscripts and collections and his in situ explorations of buildings. The fact that Schoy’s text did not make it into the accepted references in twentieth-century architectural histories in Belgium, whereas Schayes’s did, reveals much about how the discipline was formed and which methodological selections were made during its formative period.