CHAPTER X · “LA PEINTURE CLAIRE”: CLAUS, LE SIDANER, BESNARD, DIDIER-POUGET
“TOUT HOMME QUI NE RESSEMBLE PAS AUX AUTRES, DEVIENT PAR LA MÊME UN OBJET DE DÉFIANCE. DÈS QUE LA FOULE NE COMPREND PLUS, ELLE RIT. IL FAUT TOUTE UNE ÉDUCATION POUR FAIRE ACCEPTER LE GÉNIE”
ZOLA
THE work of Emile Claus is a manifestation in quite another direction of the Impressionist idea. Born in Western Flanders in 1849, he was the sixteenth child of parents in very humble circumstances. Their business in life was to supply with provisions the boatmen who passed along on the river Lys. By various means the boy, who had very early displayed a yearning for the painter’s career, managed to evade all attempts to harness him in the drudgery of the home life. A pastrycook, a railway watchman, a linendraper’s assistant, these were a few of the vocations he was condemned to try, yet from which he escaped. At last he set out for Antwerp, with £7 in his pocket, and the warning that he need not expect a penny more. In the city of Rubens he became a free pupil of Professor de Keyser. All day long he studied in the Academy. When night came he earned a livelihood by giving drawing-lessons, acting as a sculptor’s “devil,” and colouring pictures of the Stations of the Cross. At last, after many struggles, he became a popular portrait-painter in the city, particularly of children in fancy costume. In 1879 he travelled through Spain and Morocco, painting the conventional compositions of an Iberian tour, and much influenced by the style of Charles Verlat. Despite his great success in Antwerp, in 1883 Emile Claus changed his manner entirely. He shook off the dust of the city for ever, renounced portrait-painting, and became “paysagiste.” Impelled by an intense love of nature he returned to his native village on the banks of the Lys, and recommenced his life as a landscape painter “en plein air.” He has never returned to the distracting turmoil of town, and, in his quaint white and green shuttered house at Astene between Ghent and Courtrai, has buried himself in the heart of the country. Although some distance from the larger cities of Belgium, Emile Claus does not vegetate in his obscurity. On wheel or a-foot he is equally active, visiting his friends and working on his canvases, of which he has always some six or eight in progress. It may be noted that he works entirely in the open air, and finishes in front of nature. One might judge of this from the strength and completeness of his pictures.
It is years since the writer first saw a landscape by Claus, and he remembers vividly the pleasure it gave. The painting was in the well-known collection of Mr. John Maddocks, of Bradford. Upon a huge canvas the artist had depicted a cornfield ripe for the sickle, and in the midst of the wheat red poppies grew. Across the foreground, emerging from the wheat, wandered a few white ducks. Over the whole was the fierce glare of a noon-day sun. The work was convincing, naturalistic, yet poetic, inasmuch as it seemed to chant the universal hymn of nature. It was a revelation to those artists who found themselves in Bradford at that period. Unknown and a stranger, Claus received in spirit silent congratulations for his splendid achievement, which aroused in several breasts a keen feeling of emulation. The artist writes: “Mr. Maddocks has always strongly encouraged me, and had the courage to buy my work at a time when everybody in Belgium found me by far too audacious, because, as you may know, the leaders, the standard-bearers as it were, of the young Belgian school of painting are not at all in sympathy with the beautiful art of Monet and his school.” Since that day Emile Claus has greatly increased his following throughout the world, being least appreciated in his own country.
Emile Claus is a painter whose brush is charged with the sweetness of life, courageous, healthful, and buoyant. His pictures breathe of sunlight and fresh air, and it is easy to see with what sheer delight he throws himself into his work. When one seeks for the reason which so suddenly changed this prosaic painter of the Antwerp bourgeois into an Impressionist of the most modern school, one discovers the usual cause, the Englishmen of the commencement of the last century. In a recent letter to the writer, Emile Claus says that in England, above all other countries, were born light and life in painting. “I have all too quickly glanced at the Turners and Constables of London, nevertheless it was a revelation to me, and those great artists Monet, Sisley, and Pissarro continue simply what that giant Turner discovered; just as the grand epoch of Rousseau, Millet, Dupré, and Corot, passed over Belgium to find their inspiration in the marvellous works of the Dutch school.”
EMILE CLAUS
THE VILLAGE STREET · EMILE CLAUS
In the country of the Lys the artist continues to work, producing a series of pictures as beautiful as they are uncommon. One may mention his magnificent Flemish Farm of 1883, the Old Gardener of 1887 now in the Liége gallery, the canvas in the Antwerp gallery, and the fine work by which he is represented in the Luxembourg. Charming in colour, they will be found broad in manner, and perfectly original in sentiment.
RETURNING FROM MARKET · EMILE CLAUS
GOLDEN AUTUMN · EMILE CLAUS
In 1891, Claus exhibited for the first time in the Champ de Mars, and has contributed each year from that date. His technical skill grows steadily. M. Gabriel Mourey, staunch supporter of “La peinture claire,” contributed a most sympathetic article to the “Studio,” in which he wrote, “In the old days, Claus was accused of being an ‘Impressionist,’ and such he is to a certain degree just as any one may be without disrespect to the glorious traditions of the painter’s art. He is an Impressionist to this extent—that he possesses the gift of feeling with the utmost keenness the true meaning of Nature in all her manifestations; while he is bound by no rule, subject to no formula, in his endeavour to interpret that meaning on his canvas. But, unlike most Impressionists, he has the rare capacity to know how to choose his impressions, to test them to the uttermost, and never to rest until he has translated them to his full satisfaction, disdaining the haphazard attempts which are sufficient for the majority of modern landscapists. Impressionist! One need feel no surprise that the superficial observer dubs him thus; for nowadays every painter whose work is luminous and bright, and devoid of bitumen, earns and deserves the title! The truth is that Claus, without adapting his style to any special method, is mainly concerned that his works shall be as full of atmosphere as possible, that his touch shall be as free and his colour as pure as he can make them. Thus he achieves that remarkable freshness of tint, that brightness of colouring, which constitute one of the chief charms of his art.”
The little house near Astene is called in Flemish “Zonnenschyn”—“Sunshine,” and it is indeed sunshine which is predominant in the work of Emile Claus.
Le Sidaner is an artist, who, after having passed through several antagonistic stages, has developed a style entirely his own. He may be described as a mystic who views the world with an air of detachment, standing aloof from the distractions of its inhabitants. He prefers an environment breathing some vague and undefined sorrow. The joy of life does not course through his veins. The subjects which appeal most to him suggest renunciation and world-weariness, the solemn peace of a Flemish béguinage, a cobbled street in Bruges recalling dead glories, a deserted canal with a solitary swan. When he designs a figure-composition the subject belongs to the same genre, a priest administering extreme unction to a dying girl, orphans under the care of a nun, old women waiting with the patience of extreme old age for Death to release them from their suffering senility. He instils into his canvases the very essence of Keats’ line, “Sorrow more beautiful than beauty’s self.”
The only biographical account of Le Sidaner is to be found in one of M. Gabriel Mourey’s penetrating articles in the “Studio.” Le Sidaner was the son of fisherfolk from St. Malo and the Ile Bréhat. He was born in 1862, and spent the first ten years of his life in his native place, the Ile Maurice. “While quite young,” says the writer of the preface to the catalogue of an exhibition held in 1897, “he came to live in Dunkirk, beside the murmuring North Sea, with its melancholy mists. The shock he felt at the change made him absolutely pensive. It was as though, half alarmed, he was taking refuge within himself the better to express the flame of Creole tenderness which burned within him.” His father, who practised painting and sculpture as an amateur, gave the boy every encouragement. At fifteen he was taken away from school, and sent to the local École des Beaux-Arts. Here he studied under a master who was slave to the doctrines of the Antwerp school.
The artist, when telling his early experiences, deplored these evil influences. He admits that they were not worse than those forced upon him in Paris, where, at the École des Beaux-Arts, he studied under Cabanel. Five years he spent under that master, making sketches of the animals at the Jardin des Plantes, and copying Delacroix and Jordaens at the Louvre. Then he passed under the influence of Impressionism. He says: “It was in this year (1881) that Manet displayed his portraits of Pertuiset, le tueur de lions, and of Rochefort. The first of these pleased me infinitely, but the second gradually filled me with alarm; it was so different from that which I had hitherto seen. Nevertheless, I remember well that the famous Bar des Folies-Bergère by this same Manet made the profoundest impression on me. Yet the rules of the school forbade me to consider all this as beautiful as I could have wished to consider it. When I look back on those days it really seems as though I was poisoned. Etaples, that is to say Nature, revived me, and drove the drug from my system.”
APPLE GATHERING · EMILE CLAUS
Le Sidaner goes on to tell how by chance he spent a holiday at Etaples in 1881. He settled there, and remained in the little coast town from 1884 to 1893, where he made friendships with Eugène Vail, Thaulow, Henri Duhem, Alexander Harrison, and others. He refers to a visit to Holland, where Rembrandt, Peter de Hoogh, and Vermeer enchanted him. Having gained a third medal at the Salon des Champs-Élysées he was able to travel to Italy. “Italy simply turned my head, particularly Florence. Oh! the delicious hours I spent in the Convent of San Marco copying the face of the Virgin in Fra Angelico’s Annunciation. How much I preferred the simple grace of Fra Angelico and Giotto to the cleverness and skill of Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto.” It was hardly necessary to have avowed these influences, they are so evident in the work of Le Sidaner.
A SUNLIT HOUSE · EMILE CLAUS
He is a man who avoids crowds and the distracting clamour of humanity, loving to work in such dead cities as Bruges, or the peaceful countryside in the neighbourhood of Beauvais. No modern artist has better expressed on canvas the words of the great Millet. “When you paint a picture, whether the subject be a house, a plain, the ocean, or the sky, remember always the presence of man. Think how his joys and sorrows have been intermixed in these landscapes. An inner voice speaks of his inquietude and turmoils. Humanity’s whole existence is conjured up. In painting a landscape think of man.”
Le Sidaner has many affinities to Pointelin, Carrière, and Whistler. They each have sought harmonies of line and colour, and though distinct in personality and unlike in methods, they have produced wonderfully similar effects. One of the most impressive of Le Sidaner’s works is La Table in the Luxembourg. Here is the unmistakable Impressionist technique. In the courtyard of a country house is spread a table, white with napery, upon which stands a glowing opalescent lamp. A calm summer moon diffuses a gentle light over the whole scene. No human figures disturb the peaceful atmosphere, yet the sentiment of their presence pervades the place. The painting is a little masterpiece of its kind. The first canvas exhibited at the Champs-Élysées in 1887 was entitled After Church. Since that time he has exhibited year after year, the subjects of his pictures being well explained by their French titles: La Promenade des Orphelines, Communion in Extremis, Benediction de la Mer (1891), Jeune fille Hollandaise (1892), L’autel des Orphelines (1893), Départ de Tobie (1894), Les Promis, and Les Vieilles (1895). In 1900 he exhibited a notable collection of pictures of Bruges.
Le Sidaner paints a world of dreams. No better description of his work can be found than in the words of Moore:
One of those passing rainbow dreams,
Half light, half shade, which fancy’s beams
Paint on the fleeting mists that roll,
In trance or slumber, round the soul.
English readers and artists have hardly yet made the acquaintance of Besnard. To continental art-lovers he has long been known as the strongest and most audacious of the young men in the movement, and is thoroughly Impressionist in his ideas and methods. Few living artists have had the good fortune to be so much discussed as M. Besnard. Each Salon brings its chorus of admiration, its storm of disapprobation. The height of the argument was reached a few years ago, when, at the New Salon, the artist exhibited his Ponies worried by Flies. A startling piece of colour, it created a strong impression upon those who saw it. At that moment the existence of the violet tints in nature, which had been so beautifully demonstrated by Monet in his series of Les Cathédrales and by Sisley in his charming river studies, was much under discussion in the studios. In some of the works of Monet and Sisley the whole picture is saturated in a glow of violet, which is frequently to be found in nature, particularly in northern France. Those who had not seen this natural effect disbelieved in its existence and charged the artists with painting “de chic.” Those who had seen it and essayed the difficult task of reproducing it upon canvas, loudly proclaimed its truths. Then came the Ponies worried by Flies. Besnard had heard of the heated discussion raging round the violet tints, and, having observed the truth of the effect, determined to demonstrate it in paint. Never had been seen in any Salon such a blaze of colour as this. The composition seemed to be but a peg upon which to hang a sermon in technique. Violet, violent in colour, pure hot impasto as shadow, juxtaposed directly to its natural complement of light in the shape of orange and citron colours, brilliantly loud and unadulterated. A sensation was created, and disbelief in the existence of violet tints in nature for ever silenced. M. Besnard has followed this success with many other surprising themes, for it is his pleasure to amaze. He seeks incessantly the new and incongruous.
THE QUAY AT VEERE · EMILE CLAUS
THE BARRIER · EMILE CLAUS
Besnard’s talent has been, and continues to be, publicly recognised. The municipality of Paris yearly expends large sums of money in securing the best available skill for decorating the public buildings in its charge. In this laudable custom it is followed by every town of any importance throughout the country. Lavishly patronised by the Government, the municipalities, wealthy private collectors, and the sentiment of the people generally, artists thrive in France and multiply. In whatever respect—if any—in which France may be found lagging behind the nations, in Art she must by the very reason of things remain supreme, for Art is a part of her daily life. Besnard has been lucky with his commissions. He was called upon to assist in the decoration of the magnificent Hôtel de Ville of Paris, in the Town Hall of the First Arrondissement, in the lecture hall of the Sorbonne, and with the frescoes in the School of Pharmacy. In all these decorations one finds colour and composition as original as bizarre, harmonious yet forcible. All students of modern painting should not fail to see these works, the most striking in execution of the last few years. The artist’s atelier is also always open to connoisseurs, and it will be found to be crowded with sketches and pictures in progress, each one unmistakably the handiwork of a master craftsman.
AN ALLEY · HENRI LE SIDANER
THE TABLE · HENRI LE SIDANER
Five of Besnard’s canvases have been bought by the Government, and all are now to be found in the Luxembourg, an honour few artists can boast of. A list is given for reference. The first of the series is a portrait of the artist, the others being entitled Femme qui se chauffe, La Morte, Port d’Alger au Crépuscule, and Entre deux Rayons. The second and third are excellent examples of a branch of art in which Besnard is supreme. His nudes and portraits are wonderfully fine in drawing, and bewitching in colour. They will form his greatest claim to future immortality.
Besnard is a particularly sympathetic lover of horses, and no one can more naturally reproduce them in paint than he. His chief recreation is driving, and he is often to be seen “tooling” along the roads of the Bois de Boulogne and other suburbs of Paris. There is little to add personally about Albert Paul Besnard. He was born in Paris, married Mdlle. Dubray, a sculptor of much talent, and resides in the Rue Guillaume Tell. His career has been a continued series of success upon success, and at the present moment he is one of the shining stars of contemporary art in France.
Allied to the later phase of the Impressionist movement, although not actually identified with the group of artists known as the typical Impressionists, is Didier-Pouget. His habitual manner of regarding Nature, his pure and cheerful colours, and his natural temperament, include him in this survey of workers in “la peinture claire.” He has a special gift of composition, “mise en plan,” as the French say, a strong feeling for balance and form. He is at his best when depicting morning and sunset effects. His scenes of heather bathed in sunshine or glistening with the dew of an autumnal sunrise are rendered with an exceptional verisimilitude, strength, and truth.
Didier-Pouget was born at Toulouse in 1864, the son of the editor of one of the local journals. His father, a great lover of Nature, gave the boy every encouragement in his ambition to become an artist. It was the custom of father and son to take long country walks, and the elder would point out natural beauties and discuss the methods of their pictorial representation, relating at the same time biographical details of the great artists, and in every way endeavouring to train the child and sustain his ideals. After Didier-Pouget had passed through a plain schooling, professors were engaged, notably MM. Auguin and Baudit. For the latter (a local artist of genius, who, had he forsaken the quieter life of the provinces for the glare of Parisian publicity, should have attained to the highest honours an artist can reach) his old pupil has still much admiration. Then Didier-Pouget passed into the studio of Lalanne, the celebrated etcher and illustrator. Under these influences many profitable years were spent, the seed-time of a most fruitful career.
Locally the youth was regarded as a prodigy of talent, and great things were expected of him. Pictures were exhibited in the provinces which attracted much appreciation, and found many purchasers. Thus encouraged, the artist sought a wider audience, and went to Paris. It was a wise step, and Fortune smiled on him from the first. From 1886 he has exhibited year by year at the Salon, each fresh season showing a marked advance in his art, bringing to the world of Paris new and delightful colour-schemes and vivid compositions.
Didier-Pouget achieved his “Mention Honorable” in 1890, won the “Concours Troyon” the following year, and was awarded the gold medal at the Salon in 1896 upon the recommendation of Gérôme, hitherto a strong opponent to the new style. He is now a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, his medals, diplomas, and awards from foreign exhibitions and Governments being almost innumerable. Such a measure of success is rarely achieved nowadays by a man under forty in the arduous profession of art. The State and the municipality of Paris are amongst his most regular patrons. Besides the pictures reserved for Paris, he is represented in the museums of Lyons, Macon, Toulouse, Tunis, the Embassy at St. Petersburg, the galleries of Boston, U.S.A., and Leipsic, and the private collections of the Kings of Italy and Greece.
A STUDY · ALBERT BESNARD
THE DEATH-BED · ALBERT BESNARD
Personally Didier-Pouget is more Spanish than French. Of medium height, tanned complexion, black hair, dark eyes which tell unmistakably of the artist, very reserved in manner, and modest to a degree—these are his characteristics. He leads a solitary life in the Boulevard de Clichy. In his large studio will probably be found the canvas he is working upon, about ten feet by six, his favourite size. Innumerable studies are scattered around, rapid sketches of form and colour, line-drawings, careful black-and-white work full of detail, in fact every trifle which will aid him in completing the whole.
MORNING MISTS IN THE VALLEY OF THE CREUSE · DIDIER POUGET
MORNING IN THE VALLEY OF THE CORRÈZE · DIDIER POUGET
If the greatest art is to represent an impression of Nature at her best, then the work of Didier-Pouget is great. “It is truly worth while being a painter to have produced any one of these,” writes the critic of “Le Temps.” The artist loves best to represent Nature in her peaceful moods, and generally seeks the solitudes of the exquisite hills, valleys, and rivers of the Tarbes countryside, or the rich watershed of La Creuse. Here, in the fresh early-morn, charged with dew and mist, he finds his subjects, overlooking magnificent panoramas of river, hillsides covered with heather, across valleys and plains from which loom out sculpturesque masses of foliage, dark and strong against the blue mist and distant mountain ridge. The painter prefers Nature serene and undisturbed, and introduces but little incident.
It need hardly be said that his palette is free from all blacks, browns, ochres, or earth-colours generally, and that his strongest “effects” are gained by the juxtaposition of pure tints in harmonious contrast. His favourite colour-scheme seems to be the composition of subtle arrangements in yellow and blue, or pink and green. He contributes regularly to the Salon, yearly producing from two to four canvases of the size mentioned, and in these days of a limited market and unlimited talent, he invariably finds purchasers. So fortunate has he been that his numerous friends have but one fear for his future, that his enormous success may hasten a tendency to stereotype his compositions. Didier-Pouget is doubtless aware of this danger, and will probably follow his present aims in a manner which will not disfigure or flaw a most brilliant career.
THE VALLEY OF THE CREUSE · DIDIER POUGET
PORTRAIT OF HIS MOTHER · J. A. McN. WHISTLER