Guild of Saint Thomas and Saint Luke

The Guild of Saint Thomas and Saint Luke (French: Gilde de St-Thomas et St-Luc), founded in 1863 during the first of the Malines Congresses, was a Belgian association for the study and promotion of Medieval art from a Christian perspective.

Activities

Papers were read at the regular meetings, scholarships were funded, and the guild made an annual study trip. In 1867 the guild organized an exhibition of medieval art in Bruges.[1] Until 1913, it published an annual Bulletin.

Members

The founders, Jean-Baptiste Bethune and William Henry James Weale, were both influential figures in the Gothic Revival in Belgium. The first president of the guild was the clergyman-scholar Charles-Joseph Voisin, with international vice-presidents Joseph Albert Alberdingk Thijm (from the Netherlands) and Franz Johann Joseph Bock (from Germany).[2] Jules Helbig also quickly became an influential member.

Arthur Verhaegen joined the guild in 1874 and helped organise that year's study trip, which was to Hasselt, Maaseik and Diest.[3] In 1881 he became editor of the Bulletin, and in 1884 secretary.

Publications

• Gilde de Saint-Thomas et de Saint-Luc, Bulletin des séances (1871) on Google Books
• Gilde de Saint-Thomas et de Saint-Luc, Bulletin des séances (1874) on Google Books

References

1. W. H. James Weale, Tableaux de l'ancienne école néerlandaise exposés à Bruges: catalogue (Bruges, 1867), on Google Books
2. Jan De Maeyer, "Pro Arte Christiana: Catholic Art Guilds, Gothic Revival and the Cultural Identity of the Rhine-Meuse Region", in Historism and Cultural Identity in the Rhine-Meuse Region, edited by Wolfgang Cortjaens and Tom Verschaffel (Leuven, 2008), p. 163.
3. Jan De Maeyer, Arthur Verhaegen, 1847-1917: De rode baron (Leuven University Press, 1994), p. 131.

Further reading

• Ellen Van Impe, "Regionalism, Rationalism and Modernity in the Early Twentieth-Century St Luke Movement", in Sources of Regionalism in the Nineteenth Century: Architecture, Art, and Literature, edited by Linda Van Santvoort and Tom Verschaffel (Leuven University Press, 2008), pp. 139-160.