Friday, December 30, 2016

Modern French Landscapes

Paul Signac
Paimpol
1925
watercolor
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid 

Hippolyt Petitjean
Village and Bell Tower
ca. 1912-1929
watercolor
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

The Impressionists famously broke down the representation of solid forms into a struggle to represent light reflections  their main claim to newness.  At an even more basic level of form, though, they seldom altered (or even questioned) the conventional two-dimensional representation of three dimensional space using linear perspective. Instead these academically-trained artists continued to exploit the conventional depiction of receding space that had remained constant in European painting for at least five hundred years. This was the final generation of serious painters in the West who could operate without challenging spatial illusionism.

Hippolyt Petitjean
Boat on a Pond
ca. 1912-1929
watercolor
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Louis Valtat
Skaters in Winter (Garden of the Petit Trianon,Versailles)
ca. 1900
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Jean Lubin Vauzelle
The Tuileries
watercolor
19th century
British Museum

Stanislas Lépine
The Seine at the Pont de Sèvres
ca. 1876-80
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Paul Signac
Port en Bessin, The Beach
1884
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssesn-Bornemisza, Madrid

Camille Pissarro
The Orchard at Éragny
1896
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Camille Pissarro
The Cabbage Field, Pontoise
1873
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Camille Pissarro
Route de Versailles-Louveciennes, Winter, Sun & Snow
1870
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid 

Alfred Sisley
A Forest Clearing
1895
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Alfred Sisley
Evening in Moret, end of October
1888
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Alfred Sisley
Flood at Port Marly
1876
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Paul Gauguin
Dogs running in a meadow
1888
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid