« Didier Van der Noot, painter in pastels, whose preference is for big landscapes, sea views and harbour ports, small urban scenes too and woodlands. According to one newspaper: he possesses a secretive and mysterious quality which reaches a high point in his woodland views where colour and composition blend to perfection ».
Paul PIRON. Dictionary of the plastician artists of Belgium in the 19 th and 20 th centuries. Edition Art of Belgium. p. 601
« I am going to introduce you to an artist whose work has given me immense joy, if work it is (...) What is the secret? It’s that he has a masterly touch. He loves wet days (...) His pastels are influenced by blurred images of early, landscape photographs or such genre scenes (...). M. COUMANS welcomed him thus: Didier Van der Noot dazzles and surprises straightaway. Due to his exceptional skill in the use of colour and his fine technical craft, his interpretation of reality loses none of its limpidness in his hands. Didier Van der Noot has properly thought through the painting of landscape. His exact composition and fidelity to detail doesn’t disrupt the essential unity of the finished work. Indeed, his colours are impressive in their depth and range. He has such a light touch when he recalls a beauty spot. Didier Van der Noot builds up shape from the faintest of signals. His skilled accomplishment reminds one of some landscapes by Corot. His matching colours are impressive behind an apparent simplicity. Yes, Van der Noot, your skill is both fresh and scholarly which results in a work of purity and excellence ».
Raymond COUMANS, Note read the 27th April 1990 at Radio Broadcasted
« Didier Van de Noot is thirty years old and self taught. For his first exhibition, he showed favourite landscapes (...) Nothing too defined, all is enigmatic. There are two focal points in each work, thus the traditional homestead and the ugly concrete block. Elsewhere, there is a sea wall cast in shadow by an apartment, hiding the beach from early sunshine. On some sandy beaches, where changing huts are squeezed in, to fit as many as possible. In these velvety pastels, there is a stark and terrible social reality (..) This work is noteworthy for its gloomy atmosphere from which sadness isn’t excluded, especially where a palette of grey and dark brown give way to yellow and dark green all quivering together in shared melancholy ».
Anita NARDON, Le Drapeau Rouge, n° 104, 4 May 1990
« One is immediately impressed by the sensitivity in the discrete colours concealed in hazy landscapes. As Didier Van der Noot prefers big landscapes, he willingly paints sea and harbours. However, he can also with mystery and poetry, push a small urban city out of its gloom. This mystery and poetry add up to perfection in Van der Noot’s forest views, where composition and colour blend to perfection ».
F. G., Het Laatste Nieuws, n° 103, 4 May 1990
« Didier Van der Noot interpretes landscapes with tenderness and simplicity »
Wim TOEBOSCH, Arts Antiques Auctions, May 1990
« Didier Van der Noot is a painter in pastels, with a hint of romanticism. He relocates landscape back in time, to resemble old photograph stills. It is well done, charming in delicate tones ».
Anita NARDON, Le Journal des Procès, 6 April 1990
« When Van der Noot conjures up his pastels, his words take shape. Freestyle, he clears a space and defines the main line of the subject. This attitude corresponds with the essential meaning of his art, not that the pattern is evident: it rarely is, but because it’s implicit, it’s at the core of the painting. Of course, at the outset, there is a stroke: a straight line, an upwards curve or spiral downwards. I am not talking about the thousands of strokes needed to make a picture, I am thinking of the essential stroke, the one which gives the creative key to the whole and which the artist will have in mind as he works. The subject doesn’t much matter. It is the first “impulse” which counts. It is this too which gives a painting its consistency. From there, one proceeds to a landscape, a sea-view or a portrait: clothes which will cover the original concept. This will be followed by colour: silky tones or fuzzy shades. They are there only to enhance the original impulse, and to satisfy the need for detail. I know too well: subjects are almost always motionless. However, they guide and show us the way. They prompt us to explore. A folder opens up and suddenly we are thrown into the unknown. In going around an exhibition, being taken for a walk on a beach, in the countryside or through the city, Didier Van der Noot shows us the charm of those dream-places, which he has chosen; look closely: under the glass reflection or behind the chalky dust: the first stroke is there ».
Dominique De Wolf, a Conference, n° 4, March - April 1999, p. 6
« Didier Van der Noot indulges his love of the tactile. He creates misty worlds by a superimposing of polychromatic sheets. He has so brilliantly mastered the technique that he quickly tires of it. He needs something new. Then he uses graphics as impetus. He breaks up the mist with a stroke. His art takes off. Design needs space and freedom. His imaginary world is full of energy brought about the hyperactivity of humanity. Despite this, his landscapes are calm and peaceful. He skips on detail and relies instead on the nuance of special lighting effects ».
Julien BOSSELER, Le Soir, n° 58, 10 March 1999
« With Didier Van der Noot, whatever the subject (landscape, tree or face), it’s always recognisable, it’s just an excuse to show off his masterful skills, to great effect »
Pierre-Olivier ROLLIN, Le Vif - L'Express, Week-end n° 10, 12 March 1999
« Between 1980 and 1991, Didier Van der Noot, self taught and with eight exhibitions to his credit, decided to take a break in order to work on his technique. Today, one can see how much that approach has paid off; the result is impressive: preferring works of large dimensions, he opts mainly for landscape, favouring seaside views, from Brittany to the English coast, never forgetting our rural and urban scenes. There is nothing dull or boring here, the opposite in fact, realism perfectly looked, either in pastel or charcoal ».
Philippe CRETEUR, La Lanterne, n° 30, February 1999
« Charcoal and pastel work best to produce a hazy effect, looking at nature through a veil, like a misty morning. Didier Van der Noot finds his way through scenes of beaches and harbours, bringing to life city streets and the stately elegance of an isolated tree. He studies his surroundings, then he reworks this vision, like a dream, not to reproduce it exactly, but to give the whole a certain mystery and magic ».
Arts, Antiques, Auctions, n° 299, March 1999
« Didier Van der Noot, 37 years old (...) Paints in pastels and draws with charcoal. His work is subtle rather than obvious. The outline is barely visible and the colour is delicate ».
F.D.B. Et E.Pr., La Dernière Heure, 5 March 1999
« There, behind intertwined branches of a tree, on a winding path, is a child’s face, a small house Ardennes style, a stream flowing past, some light snow .... Nature takes its course ... The changing colours from silver grey to white, all come alive (...) It’s much more than a landscape on canvas. Didier Van der Noot has succeeded in bringing his most precious scenes to life in all their magic... A hillside, a flower filled field at dawn, a village square. The young painter who impressed straightaway now surprises us with the depth and vividness of his art and his charcoal drawings. Relax, look again and study it a little ... Perhaps like him, like me also, you will see a colour, which you missed before ».
Séverine HUYSMANS, La Conférence, n°3, January - February 2002, p. 21
« Belgian painter Didier Van der Noot’s impressions of Brussels, shows us the city through a profusion of colour and magical sequences, by day and by night. These pastels create a magnitude that is both refined and mysterious and through muted tones gives a vibrant beauty to the city that is not often recorded ».
AZART, n° 15, July - August 2005
« Didier Van der Noot belongs to a fine tradition of urban landscape artists. His velvet colours and soft focus gives a glow to all that he portrays. A glistening cobblestone, a canal in the mist some place between dog and wolf, he finds them and paints them with infections and careful attention ».
Jacques DE DECKER, Le Soir, 22 April 2005