Egide Smeyers

Egide Smeyers kept painting the same quiet streets of 19th-century Wallonia even as the rest of Europe chased Parisian fashions. The locals called him the “painter of cobblestones” for his knack of letting a single red sleeve or torn coat stand out against dull stone. Look at Fiii lui Iacob aduc hainele însângerate ale lui Iosif: the brothers’ cloaks are splashed with paint that still looks wet, a trick he learned from old church frescoes.

If you like that jump from everyday gray to sudden scarlet, tap the work and zoom in, you’ll feel the chill of a morning in Liège.