The centenary of Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898)

Marseille no longer wants people to say that it is only a trading country, and for this, it is putting itself in charge and thinking of honoring its glorious artists, as well as those who contribute to its glory. .

Very recently the beautiful Phocaean city glorified the painter Ricard. She thinks today, of Monticelli, of Daumier, Cézanne's turn will certainly come.

And this year we will be celebrating the centenary of the great artist Puvis de Chavannes. And that's very good! Because Marseille is largely endowed with works by the master! The Longchamp museum owns Le Retour de Chasse (1859) and more than sixty drawings, donated by his heirs. In addition, it is on the staircase of the same palace that two major works are located: Massilia Greek Colony (1868) and Marseille Porte de l'Orient (1869). Concerning these two compositions, is it not curious to read, after the consecration of their brilliant author, the critical opinion at the time when they were exhibited at the Salon?

We know that Massilia, a Greek colony, represents the birth of the city and that Marseille, the gateway to the Orient, is the arrival of human beings and products from all countries of the world. But we are perhaps less aware that these two vast decorations (which are not frescoes) (1), but which have the freshness of all the colored harmonies, are works of rare distinction in decoration. wall mounted? This did not prevent Mr. Castagnary from saying enormous nonsense about them. Read instead:

From a distance, these fantastic colorings have the effect of tinted geography maps. From close. we see that these are canvases painted in oil (Puvis never painted in fresco), by a hand so novice and so poor that their model does not reach the relief of a front of a fireplace... Neither landscapes nor the groups that life forms serve as a model for him; he needs imaginary bodies to express what he calls his idea; he marks on his canvas weak silhouettes, filling them with a tint. hopelessly flat, and all this is loose, soft, uncertain. Dirty in tone and sad in appearance...

And to think that despite this lack of relief, of a fireplace front, these dirty, flat, sad-looking tones, which Castagnary did not like, it was henceforth the unity of order and conduct that Puvis never left more (fortunately).

It is true that this brave painting critic did not know that the great designers see and... breathe in a two-dimensional space, the third is the line which gives it; he had also not understood that Puvis's painting is entirely synthetic, abstract and ideal in composition, and that as an artist-poet, filled, penetrated with the poetry of his subjects, he invented a sun of his own, to illuminate his characters harmonizing a whole, breathing perfect serenity, giving the figures a symbolic aspect of immortals grouped in the charming sweetness of an Elysian stay.
It is obvious that Puvis de Chavannes is the purest representative of great modern art in France. Puvis was a loyal and honest artist, with a sincere front and a clear conscience.

Such is the authority of great art and Puvis style. The greatness of a Puvis de Chavannes is due to one thing, but it is great, that he did so at a time (which unfortunately still lasts!) when decorative painting does not always shine with greatness of soul. , pure decoration, and so noble that next to it, the other, the others, seem to come out of a cliché drawn from garish, insignificant banality...

And what could be more admirably modern than this oil painting which hangs on the wall, like a real fresco! In this sense we hardly see, even today, anyone who goes beyond it to the point of making us... forget it. There is only one Puvis.

And how well Marseille does to think of the great decorator, who was its illustrator. It will only be a tribute due to this unique genius, from the ideal spheres, far above the eastern lands.

A. GRASS-MICK.

(1) Mr. Léon Riotor, in his book Puvis de Chavannes, talks about frescoes. Never, as far as I know, did Puvis paint directly on a wall prepared with fresh lime. So the term fresco used is a technical error.