XX

An avant-garde artistic circle founded in Brussels on October 28, 1883, by the lawyer and cultural mainspring Octave Maus (1856-1919), whose members were called ‘twentyists’ and whose painting, aimed at being innovative, privileged light above all else. The XX – the number of members since the departure of James Ensor (1860-1940), Fernand Khnopff (1858-1921) and Van Rysselberghe (1862-1926) – organised annual Salons in the Belgian capital: the first of them opened on February 2, 1884, in the first of the Brussels Palais des Beaux-arts, the future Royal Museum of Ancient Art. A number of artists whom posterity was to recognise joined this association: to restrict ourselves to the most famous, we can cite Félicien Rops (1833-1898), Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) and Georges Minne (1866-1947).