Today I wanted to share a few of these wonderful, dreamy photographs by a Belgian painter Alfonse Van Besten (1865-1926) whose curious, inventive spirit prompted him to experiment with photography as well. In one of these photographs, you can see Van Besten painting in his beautiful garden full of flowers and greenery. Painting in one’s garden is the kind of idyll that Claude Monet knew all too well. These autochrome photographs are a real delight to gaze at, they are like nostalgic windows to a secret lost world of eternal spring, meadows with cornflowers and gardens in bloom, the kind of place that I often daydream about. “Two girls picking flowers” is my favourite photograph out of all these, there’s just something so innocent about it and I can imagine the mood of a warm, fragrant summer day, bees buzzing, crickets chirping, long thin stems of the cornflowers swaying in the soft southern breeze, the girls pick flowers oblivious to everything else. Only the cornflowers exist, nothing else matters.
“Spring comes quickly: overnight
the plum tree blossoms,
the warm air fills with bird calls.”
(Louise Gluck, Primavera)
Alfonse van Besten, Two girls picking cornflowers, c 1912
Alfonse van Besten, Young girl amidst marguerites, c 1912
Alfonse van Besten, Van Besten painting in his garden, 1912
Alfonse van Besten, Children at play, c 1912
Alfonse van Besten, Youth Idyll, 1914
Autochrome photograph by Alfonse Van Besten, “Modesty”, 1912
Alphonse van Besten, Mime in love, c 1912
Alphonse van Besten, Mime in love, c 1912
Byron's Muse 
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