Fording the River. Constant Troyon, 1810-1865
Troyon, a member of the Barbizon group, was fascinated by the pastoral aspect of cattle in landscapes. While Ruisdael was the principal example for Rousseau and Diaz, it was to Cuyp, the Dutch cattle painter, that Troyon went for inspiration. These two paintings are part of the bequest of Mrs. W. H. Dunwoody.
The Beach at Trouville. Eugene Boudin, 1824-1898
Historically, Boudin is important as a link between the Men of 1830 and the Impressionists—more specifically, between Corot and Monet. If the public and the conservatives of the Academy ignored him, his art was understood and admired by his greatest confreres. “King of the skies,” Corot called him. Courbet, after watching him paint a canvas, exclaimed, “Truly you are one of the seraphim, for you alone understand the heavens!” Monet, in a letter to him in 1889, wrote “in recognition of the advice which has made me what I am.” The modest Boudin in turn gives much credit to Corot, Courbet and Jongkind for his own insight into the subtle truths of atmosphere.
Born at Honfleur, the son of a steamboat pilot, Boudin was a cabin-boy until the age of fourteen. In spare moments, he began to make sketches which revealed talent. Later he was able to devote more time to painting, although even beyond the age of fifty there were periods when he was obliged to turn day-laborer to keep himself alive. The greater part of his paintings represent scenes in Norman and Breton harbors showing quais and jetties with the bare masts of square-riggers fretted against gray skies. Some time after 1868 Isabey persuaded him to paint the fashionable watering places, and it was several years later that our Beach at Trouville must have been produced. Yet in reality his subject was always sky and atmosphere. The charm of his water, the depth and reach of his skies, with that marvelous subtlety of silvery grays, and violet grays, and leaden grays, his habit of painting always “en plein-air,” his way of using the brush, these things must indeed have influenced the younger Monet, and Monet's canvases dated around 1870 show a clear parallelism.
Geranium. Albert Andre, 1869-
Albert Andre is known especially for his charming flower pieces. These show the artist as a master of technique, gifted with a peculiar sensitiveness to value relations and an unusual color sense. He is particularly happy in securing an agreeable texture. He is a realist in intention, but combines truth of representation with beauty of design. In the Geranium, the emphasis is rather more upon decoration of the rectangular surface of the canvas than upon the representation of tri-dimensional form. The clear note of the salmon pink blossoms against the accompaniment of the carefully distinguished grays and the Venetian red in leaves, wall, and draperies is finely felt. Andre holds a distinguished position among painters of the contemporary French school.