Saint Donatus Park. Albert Giraud preferred to live on the moon.

Albert Giraud, born Emile Albert Kayenbergh (Leuven, June 23, 1860 – Schaarbeek, December 26, 1929), was a French-speaking Belgian writer and poet. Giraud studied law in Leuven but left university early to devote himself to journalism and literary writing. In Brussels, he met Emile Verhaeren, Iwan Gilkin, and Max Waller, with whom he founded “La jeune Belgique,” a Belgian nationalist literary movement from the 1880s, heavily influenced by the French symbolists (‘Parnassians’) of that era.

The work of Giraud is characterized by an ingrained pessimism. He shows a disdain for women and society, withdraws from the world, and prefers to live on the moon in the later Pierrot Lunaire (1884), set to music by Arnold Schönberg.

However, in his time, Giraud was little understood, which leads him back to the values of the French Renaissance, of which he extols the epic grandeur and sexual freedom (Hors du siècle, 1894). Giraud's later collections glorify the ancient gods as symbols of transcendental greatness and beauty, contrasting with the baseness and banality of life on earth.

During his last years, he became blind. He died in Schaarbeek, where a street is named after him. His bust, a work by sculptor Victor Rousseau that closely resembles the one in Leuven, adorns the Josaphatpark. It dates from 1930, and the Leuven one was unveiled five years later.

The statue

As a former student of the College Communal, the statue was placed near his school. It was set up on the slope near the kiosk and was for a time surrounded by deer in an inn. Today, he can once again ponder undisturbed.

The bust purchased by the city was unveiled on Sunday, June 23, 1935, six years after Giraud's death, on the day he would have turned seventy-five. The chairman of the Flemish Academy for Language and Literature, Fernand Victor Toussaint van Boelaere, pointed out in his speech the paradox (and merit) of a “writer who, born a Fleming, enriched French literature with works of beauty of imperishable value and significance.” And Mayor Raoul Claes justified the purchase and placement of the statue of a French-writing litterateur as follows: “The poet distinguished himself in the forefront by his attachment to his hometown and to the Flemish land, whose freedom and independence he praised.”

The sculptor

Victor Rousseau (Feluy, December 16, 1865 – Vorst, March 17, 1954), sculptor and draughtsman, was a student of Charles Van der Stappen. He was a teacher (and for a time director twice) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. His extensive oeuvre, which is related to art nouveau and tends toward symbolism, includes drawings, portrait busts, heads, and figurative groups. Many of his sculptures subtly express the delicate grace of the female body. Like Albert Giraud, he had a solid knowledge of Greco-Roman civilization and was a music lover and pianist.

Jan Rymenams