Jean Delville (b. January 19, 1867 in Louvain Belgium, d.1953 in Forest-Bruxelles), was a master of esoteric symbolism who studied under Barbey d'Aurevilly, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, and later became influenced by writer-magician Joséphin Péladan, creator of the Salon de la Rose+Croix where Delville showed regularly (1892–1895). In 1896 he founded the Salon d'Art Idéaliste in Belgium and after being a professor and director at the Glasgow School of Art from 1900 to 1905, taught at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels until 1937.

Delville was profoundly influenced by idealism, Cabbala, magic, Theosophy, and hermetic philosophy and became a follower of Krishnamurti. Reacting against the agnostic skepticism of the age, he felt himself completely devoted to the mission of returning the Divine Mystery to the world through art and poetry.

‘Understood in its metaphysical sense,
Beauty is one of the manifestations of the Absolute Being.
Emanating from the harmonious rays of the Divine plan,
it crosses the intellectual plane to shine once again across
the natural plane, where it darkens into matter.’

— Jean Delville 1899