Bruno Destrée (1867-1919) was a Benedictine monk, a French-language poet, and a Belgian literary critic. He was the brother of the politician Jules Destrée.
Anglophile, he was really enthusiastic about Pre-Raphaelite painting: in 1894 he published Les Préraphaélites : notes sur l’art décoratif et la peinture en Angleterre, the very first essay on this movement in French. In the Revue général of October 1895, he gave a nearly complete translation of "La Lampe de la mémoire", the sixth chapter of The Seven Lamps of Architecture; a few years later, Marcel Proust’s reading of that text would be decisive in his own business of translating John Ruskin’s work.
He then collaborated with the Catholic magazine Durendal. He gradually got closer to Catholicism and decided in October 1898 to enter the Order of St. Benedict. He took the name of Dom Bruno and later left Maredsous abbey to enter Keizersberg Abbey in Leuven. He was ordained priest in 1903.
In 1911, he collaborated with his brother to organise the exhibition Les Arts anciens du Hainaut.
He died of peritonitis on 30 October 1919 in Leuven.
Works
1891 – Journal des Destrée
1894 – Poèmes sans rimes, available on Internet Archive
1894 – Les Préraphaélites : notes sur l’art décoratif et la peinture en Angleterre, available on Internet Archive
1895 – The Renaissance of Sculpture in Belgium, available on Internet Archive
1897 – Les Mages
1898 – Trois Poèmes : Sainte Dorothée de Cappadoce ; Sainte Rose de Viterbe ; Saint Jean Gualbert
1904 – La Mère Jeanne de Saint-Mathieu Deleloë : une mystique inconnue du xviie siècle
1908 – Au milieu du chemin de notre vie
1910 – Les Bénédictins
1911 – L'Âme du Nord
1913 – Impressions et Souvenirs
1913 – L’Orfèvrerie religieuse : l’œuvre de Jan Brom, available on Internet Archive
References
Cynthia J. Gamble, Proust as Interpreter of Ruskin : The Seven Lamps of Translation, Birmingham, Summa Publications, 2002 (ISBN1-883479-36-3), chap. 4 ("Proust’s Ruskinian epiphany"), pp. 52–55.
Bibliography
Laurence Brogniez, "Georges-Olivier Destrée et la religion de l’art : de l’esthète au converti", in Alain Dierkens (ed.), Problèmes d’histoire des religions : Dimensions du sacré dans les littératures profanes, vol. 10, Brussels, Éditions de l’université de Bruxelles, 1999, pp 33–42
Henry Carton de Wiart, La Vocation d’Olivier-Georges Destrée, Paris, Flammarion, coll. "Notre clergé", 1931, 248 p.
Geneviève De Grave, Dom Bruno Destrée : l’esthète, le converti, le moine, Liège, La Pensée catholique, coll. "Études religieuses", 1942, 22 p.
René Dethier, Les Écrivains de chez nous : Dom Bruno Destrée (Olivier-Georges), vol. VI, Charleroi, Éditions de la Jeune Wallonie, s.d., 12 p.
Arnold Goffin, "Olivier-Georges Destrée", Durendal, no. 12, 1898, pp. 991–1000.
Pierre Nothomb, Une conversion esthétique : Olivier-Georges Destrée, Brussels, Action catholique, coll. " Science et foi ", 1913, 51 p.
Gladys Turquet-Milnes, "The Destrée Brothers: The Neo-Catholic Movement and Socialist Movement", in Some Modern Belgian Writers: A Critical Study, New York, Robert M. McBride & Co., 1917, pp. 129–149.
Idesbald Van Houtryve, " Destrée (Georges of Olivier-Georges) ", in Biographie Nationale de Belgique, vol. XXXIII, Brussels, Établissements Émile Bruylant, 1965, col. 247-251.
