The Realm of Silence. Consequences of the artistic migration towards Great Britain during the Great War on post war Belgian interior design.
Promotors: Lara Schrijver, Els De Vos
In this PHD the aim has been to study a very specific part of the cultural and artistic effects of the Great War, since a vacuum existed and not much research on cultural history for that matter had been done. Even less studied had been the impact of the migration of millions of Belgians war refugees who fled to France, the Netherlands, and the approximately 250 000 that fled to Great Britain. As for the latter segment hundreds of artists and architects were part of this migration, their lives and work and its possible relevance to art history, architectural history and interior design history had long been overlooked. The aim of this PHD has been to study the impact of this artistic migration to Great Britain through the lens of the interior, which thus functions as conversion point for broader art historical issues.