リエージュの湖・トップ15

A friend of George Grard, Charles Leplae, like him, appreciated the depiction of female nudes. He regularly imbued them with reserved, pensive, and introspective poses. True to this style and the artist's taste for allegories, this grave-looking sculpture embodies both a young girl and the young woman. Kneeling on the banks of the Deer Pond, in a bucolic setting, it is certainly the most delicate work in the collection. To be brought to the Sart Tilman estate, the original 3.5-meter-high work, installed at the National Bank of Belgium, was reduced to life-size scale and then placed slightly back in its current green setting, into which it blends perfectly, both in color and in its restrained poetry.

Quiet location, children can enjoy a beautiful playground, watch the geese and ducks. Vitality trail, possibility of eating.

Charles Leplae Leplae's art is entirely focused on the human figure, especially women. When he represents her naked, he transcends this very nakedness to elevate her to the rank of symbol. The young girl, frozen in bronze, is more than her model. The chaste nudity, the seriousness of the expression, the modest gesture give the representation a universal dimension. This allegory of one of the eras of women could not find a more important location, near a pond rich in the seeds of life. The original 3.5 m high work, designed in 1951, is installed in the architectural complex of the National Bank of Belgium in Brussels. Sculpting techniques make it possible to reproduce and reduce works. Life-size, installed in a wooded setting, the kneeling girl commands respect for the place in an almost authoritative manner and invites an inner dialogue.

Here you can sit on a bench with a view of the pond.

Here you can relax on a bench with a view of the pond and the water features

Former quarry now used as a diving center. Magnificent rock visible from the path but the site is only accessible to the diving club

For those who want this restored

The site, composed of an excavation with extremely eroded slopes, a deep pond and a flat area characterized by an abundance of heather, is in the process of being recolonized by vegetation adapted to this sandy soil, which is very poor in mineral salts. It is therefore home to psammophilous species (which carry out all or part of their life cycle in a sandy substrate): many burrowing insects but also the sand martin. Protected species include the wood turtle dove, the natterjack toad, the smooth snake and the grass snake. Management measures aim to restore the moorland areas, maintain a refuge area for psammophilous insects and restore a cliff that is favorable to the sand martin. The Larbois sandpit, a state-owned nature reserve, is of undeniable aesthetic interest, with its variegated, white, yellow, ochre sands, associated with a few purplish clayey levels. Having sedimented in the Tertiary era in a depression of the Carboniferous limestone, the sands come from the last sea that covered our region around 25 million years ago. They did not transform into sandstone, erosion having dispersed them after the sea retreated. This old sandpit, exploited between 1962 and 1975, is one of the points of interest on the geological trail. Labeling: Site of Great Biological Interest, State-owned nature reserve. Bus 342 Stop: Géromont-centre (2.5 km walk).