Say Saint-Luc, and you immediately think of Andreas,
Schuiten, Sokal, Berthet, Forster, Duveaux, Goffin, Cossu.
All from the same generation. Have any people of Saint-Luc
become famous before or after that?
Andreas: There was a female draftsman,
Antoinette Collin, who made things for Robbedoes.
I think she has stopped. I think we were the first generation
of Saint-Luc. In my year were Duveaux and me, in the next
year Antonio Cossu, Philippe Foerster and Philippe Berthet,
and the year after that François Schuiten and Goffin
and later several others: Séraphine,
Chantal de Spiegeleer. Who came after that I don't remember.
When Schuiten came to Saint-Luc, we didn't understand
what his purpose was. He had already published a short
story in Pilote and was technically more advanced than the others.
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After Saint-Luc you went to the Academy of Sint-Gilles?
Andreas: At the same time, I think, at the end of the second year.
Eddy Paape started a new course at a small academy two hundred
metres from Saint-Luc. A French friend of mine had taken a look and
told me: "You should come too, it's really good."
Then I went too. I believe that virtually everyone from Saint-Luc
followed Paapes lessons at the same time. It was exactly what
I was looking for: down to earth, do it so-and-so,
little rules. It had its own limitations, but it taught me
more than Saint-Luc. It has given me the foundation to do
what I wanted to do, and add some external influences.
Paape gave precise directions, something to hold on to.
He gave you assignments like: a car arrives at a house and stops;
someone gets out of the car, enters the house,
gets back into the car and the car takes off. Dat was an
exercise he had used for years. Claude Renard always told us that it didn't matter:
"You don't need to make such an exercise, it doesn't work like that..."
And yet it mattered! When we left Saint-Luc, noone could just make a plate
displaying a simple action. We could hardly tell something accurate and simple.
Even during our time at school most students realized something was wrong and
developed a kind of reaction. Especially Duveaux, who was always very
critical and somewhat withdrawn, had conflicts with Renard. Renard in turn
rejected Duveaux' work completely. Eventually Duveaux was the first
to publish something after he left the academy. In short I also
disagreed completely with Renard.
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