He is known for his religious works, typically showing the suffering of Jesus Christ, which stirred a conflict within the Catholic Church.

Albert Servaes was born in Ghent, Belgium in a middle class family engaged in retail activities.

From 1905 Servaes became interested in religion and mysticism while living in Sint-Martens-Latem and befriended members of a local church community.

[2] Servaes struggled to live off his paintings early in his career, but he gained fame and recognition in Ghent and Belgium during World War I.

He was chairman of the Oost-Vlaamse Federatie voor Kunstenaars (East Flanders Federation of Artists) and a member of the Nederlandsche Kultuurkamer, an institution set up by the German occupier, which all artists, architects, writers, journalists, musicians, film actors and stage performers had to join in order to be allowed to work.

He was also a member of the Duitsch-Vlaamsche Arbeidsgemeenschap (DeVlag) (German-Flemish Labor Community) which in May 1941 was incorporated in the occupier's SS structures.

Fellow artists Constant Permeke and Evarist De Buck [nl] accused him of turning in people to the Germans.

[6] The first postwar Servaes exhibition to be held in his home country in Bruges caused a stir as Evarist De Buck and some resistance groups protested vehemently against it by reason of the role he had played in the collaboration with the Germans.

Servaes used rough brushstrokes, in simple areas of thickly applied dark earth colours, to create a synthetic image of a banal field of stubble at the edge of a wood.

In an effort to support and explore Servaes' spiritual vision, Dutch Carmelite friar Titus Brandsma had the images published in Opgang, a Catholic cultural magazine.

[8] The controversy demonstrates how expressionist art was misunderstood at the time as the work was seen as distorting nature so as to lead away from beauty.

By 1935, the public was more accepting of new art styles, and the monks commissioned Servaes to create a new series of the Stations of the Cross.