By Ben Antao

On his trip to France, the writer learnt about Impressionist painters.

PAUL SIGNAC (1863-1935), though fascinated by the work of Monet, moved away from romantic impressionism to create his own brand of “scientific impressionism.” This style of painting is noted for its pointillist brush marks with little dots. A charming, neo-impressionist painting of this genre is his Les Andelys. The Bank (1886, oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm), a landscape painted in the small Norman town of Les Andelys. It captures the glare of the midday sun and what critics called “the division of colour and optical mixes.”

Eventually Signac moved away from the small dots and neo-impressionism and came back to the style of Monet, with larger and freer brush strokes. In Red Buoy (1895, oil on canvas, 81 x 65 cm), his brush marks make his canvas more expressive, spontaneous and lyrical.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), who found his themes in the dance halls, cafes and brothels of Montmartre, celebrated the dancers of the Moulin Rouge. In Jane Avril Dancing (c 1892, oil on cardboard, 85.5 x 45 cm), he demonstrates his dazzling technique: the face, a true portrait, and the upper part of the body are painted with energetic, precise brushstrokes, while the rest of the painting is barely sketched and the texture of the canvas remains visible. Jane Avril, an elegant, cultured woman who was part of the night life and show business, is said to have posed for the artist on many occasions. “Once she was dancing, turning, graceful and light, a little eccentric, pale and slender, a thoroughbred,” according to Paul Leclercq, a writer friend of the artist.

Dancing at the Moulin-Rouge or La Goulue and Valentin le Désossé (1895, oil on canvas, 2.98 x3.16 m), was shown at the Foire du Trône in Paris. The Fôire du Trone was a booth set up by the dancer named Louise Weber who made a name for herself at the Moulin Rouge when it opened in 1889. In 1895, at the age of only 29, as her success waned, she set up at the Foire and asked the artist to paint two panels at the entrance of her booth.

The other panel titled The Moorish dance or The Egyptian Dancing Girls (1895) captures Weber dancing surrounded by Paul Sescau, Maurice Guibert, Gabriel Tapié de Ceyleran, Oscar Wilde, Jane Avril, Toulouse-Lautrec and Félix Fénéon.

VAN GOGH

VINCENT van Gogh (1853-1890), one of the youngest painters of the Impressionistic period, used colour not only to give texture to the drawing but more importantly to convey moods and feelings of his pictorial subjects. In his famous, widely viewed self-portrait Portrait of the Artist (1887) oil on canvas, 44.1 x 35.1 cm), the artist is wearing a suit, but the attention is focused on the face. His features look hard and emaciated, his green-rimmed eyes seem intransigent and anxious. The dominant colour, a mix of absinth green and pale turquoise finds a counterpoint in its complementary colour, the fiery orange of the beard and hair.

Van Gogh admired Rembrandt, his fellow Dutchman, of whose portraits he’d said, “They are more than nature, they are something of a revelation.” If so, Van Gogh’s self-portrait can be said to reveal the tormented soul of the artist. This oil painting is one of many self-portraits he completed in Arles, south of France, during the last two years of his anguished life.

In his Bedroom at Arles (1889, oil on canvas, 57.5 x 74 cm), Van Gogh wanted to express the tranquillity and simplicity of his bedroom using the symbolism of colours. In a letter to his brother Theo, he describes the picture: “The pale, lilac walls, the uneven, faded red of the floor, the chrome-yellow chairs and bed, the pillows and sheet in very pale lime green, the blood-red blanket, the orange-coloured wash stand, the blue wash basin, and the green window.”

In the painting, the colours create psychological effects and are juxtaposed with a swinging perspective — the floor rises as if extending the wall, and the viewpoint varies according to the objects.
During his confinement to a mental hospital, he produced an oil painting Starry Night (1888), in which the violence of his troubled psyche is fully expressed. Trees are shaped like flames while the sky and stars whirl in a cosmic vision. The canvas (72.5 x 92 cm) looks serene, with the mood reinforced by the presence of a couple of lovers at the bottom of the painting.

Van Gogh’s The Restaurant de la Sirène in Asnières (1887), painted during his eighteen months in Paris, reflects the external appearance of the buildings more than the convivial pleasures enjoyed inside. The Impressionists, above all Renoir, often depicted restaurants, but preferred to evoke the atmosphere inside them. In this oil painting (54.5 x 65.5 cm), the artist increased the white brushstrokes, while still using the full richness of his palette. Although this painting is one of his closest in style to Impressionism, it suggests a more personal style that would soon reach its peak. Asnières s located on the banks of the Seine where the artist painted and drew several views of the bridges.

CÉZANNE

PAUL Cézanne (1839-1906) began his artistic career by assiduously copying the paintings by the great masters in the Louvre. “The Louvre is the book that teaches us how to read,” he once said. His early work The Magdalene or Pain (circa 1868-1869) is noted for its dark tones with heavy brush marks to bring out the powerful contrast or chiaroscuro of light and shadow. However, he literally came to life when he began painting “still-lifes” to which he gave inner life through colour and perspective.

Apples and Oranges (circa 1895-1900), Still-Life with Onions (circa 1895), and The Blue Vase (circa 1885-1887) are three of the almost 200 still-life paintings that feature the same accessories — earthenware dishes and a jug decorated with a floral motif and draped cloth. These oil paintings are viewed from the above to evade classical perspective and the illusion of depth. The dynamic effect created by a complex spatial construction and Cézanne’s subjective perception of the arranged objects illustrate his essentially pictorial approach. The objects are painted from several different viewpoints. Apples and Oranges (74 x 93 cm), which combines modernity and sumptuous beauty, is the most important still life produced by artist in the late 1890s.

During the last fifteen years of his life, Cézanne moved away from the depiction of what was merely visual, and focused more on the aesthetic creation of art by reinventing space and figures. An example of this effort is the painting Bathers (1890-1892), which tries to achieve a fusion of the human figure and the landscape. In this 60 x 82 cm canvas, the artist does not focus on the flesh, as Renoir did, but rather on the bodies which powerfully structure the space. The theme of water is left aside and only the smooth, delicately iridescent substance of the clouds recalls Cézanne’s attachment to Impressionism.

Cézanne’s compression of space to reveal character and conflict is most effective in The Card Players (circa 1890-1895), in which two men are shown sitting on either side of a table, with a bottle and light playing on it, forming the central axis of the composition. The bottle separates the space into two symmetrical areas, accentuating the opposition of the players. The latter are allegedly peasants Cézanne used to see at his father’s property in Jas de Bouffan, on the outskirts of Aix. The game has not yet begun, and the two men, silent and concentrating hard, are still holding all the cards, a dramatic moment skilfully realised.

On our way to Monte Carlo, the coach stopped at Aix-en-Provence for a midmorning break. It was a sunny day and, after a pastry and cappuccino, Marinella and I walked about the tree-lined city centre whose main attraction was a high fountain with marble sculptures of the Three Graces, the three daughters of Zeus representing grace, beauty and happiness. In 2006, the city had celebrated the death centenary of Paul Cézanne by installing a life-size statue of the artist in a garden near the centre. It was a photo opportunity.

Later Filipe pointed out from the highway the house where Cézanne had lived with his parents. It looked like The Hanged Man’s House that he painted in 1873. “Most of the Impressionists lived a hard life,” he said, “only Monet and Cézanne made money in their lifetime.”

SCULPTURES

THE grand sculptures are displayed on the middle level and ground floor under a bright and airy interior with a glass canopy that in itself is a splendid piece of architecture with its curved ceiling and space. The big, ornately designed railway clock in golden hues and Roman numerals is the only sign that this museum was created out of the old railway station and opened to the public in 1986. The clock is a thing of beauty and acts like a magnet to the visitor.

Here along the central aisle are stunning sculptures in marble, bronze and metal by famous artists like Ernest Barrias, Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, Albert Bartholome, Emile-Antoine Bourdelle, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Auguste Clésinger, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, and Aristide Maillol.

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) has an entire terrace dedicated to his work. Rodin’s The Kiss (1889), in marble, depicts the adulterous lovers Paolo and Francesca in their first embrace. It has a timeless feel to it with a delicate balance of the idealistic and the erotic. Originally part of a larger commission, The Gates of Hell, illustrating Dante’s Inferno, The Kiss was produced at a time of great experimentation, leading to the transformation of the human figure.

His Fugitive Love (1886), in bronze, is a striking composition formed of two bodies, a man and a woman, acrobatically clinging to each other as if being pulled by invisible, opposing forces. This work is no less poignant than The Kiss in its emotional tension, symbolising the troubles encountered by lovers.

Emile-Antoine Bourdelle (1831-1929), an admirer of Rodin, looked to mythology for his subjects. His Hercules Killing the Birds of Lake Stymphalis (1909), a gilded bronze statue, is an exceptional work for its tension and balanced construction. The nude figure of Hercules the Archer denotes power, high-strung energy, pulled taut between the arm bending the bow and the foot braced against the rock. The almond shaped eyes, the nose extending in a straight line from the forehead, jutting cheekbones and brows mesmerise the viewer.

A taste for movement is evident in Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux’s The Four Parts of the World Holding the Celestial Sphere (circa 1872) in bronze. When Baron Haussmann, the prefect of Paris, commissioned Carpeaux (1827-1875) to design a fountain for the Luxembourg Gardens in 1867, the sculptor chose the theme of the four parts of the world turning around the celestial sphere. Not only are the four allegories dancing in a ring, but they are also revolving on the spot. Europe scarcely touches the ground, Asia with her long pigtail is seen almost from the back, Africa is in a three-quarter view and America wearing a feather headdress is facing the spectator but her body is turned to the side.

PASSION

CARPEAUX showed his passion for movement in another stone sculpture titled Dance (1865-1869), in stone, depicting a farandole of women encircling the spirit of dance. Farandole is a lively dance from Provence in 6/8 or 4/4 time in which dancers link hands to form a weaving line following the leader. The artist achieves a dual momentum of circular and vertical motion, with the leaping spirit dominating the group, urging on the circle of bacchantes in unbalanced postures. Beautiful indeed.

Another popular statue in the museum is Nature Unveiling Herself to Science (1899) by Ernest Barrias (1841-1905), in marble and polychrome onyx from Algeria, grey granite pedestal, malachite scarab, lapis lazuli ribbon. A young woman, allegory of nature, is slowly lifting the veils she is wrapped in.

Carefully carved to enhance the decorative qualities of the materials, the various parts of the statue play on the veins in the ribboned onyx for the veil, the mottled effect of the red marble for the robe, the precious intense blue of lapis lazuli for the eyes and malachite for the scarab and coral for the mouth and lips. The sculpture is suitably rich and sumptuous.

Also drawing attention was Barrias’ high relief Nubians, also called The Alligator Hunters (1894) in plaster. The details of the animals and plants, such as the scales on the alligator or the prickles on the cacti, are rendered with naturalistic precision.

However, Barrias staged the scene in the manner of the ‘human zoos’ of his time, in which Nubians wearing loincloths mimed hunting scenes. The suspense in the relief is intriguing: would the man with the spear snatch the woman from the alligator’s jaws? Would the children be saved?

Another high relief that engaged our attention was The Eagle Hunter (1900) by Jules-Felix Coutan (1848-1939), a French sculptor best known in the United States for the sculpture above the entrance to the Grand Central Terminal in New York City. The white plaster relief is executed in the fin-de-siecle neo-Baroque style.

In addition to the sculptures, there are more paintings along the walls here as if to immerse the visitor into a deep well of art. One huge captivating mural is that of Christ preaching to his apostles, obviously in paradise for the twelve are shown nude. A magnificent visual!

After nearly three hours, we emerged out of the museum and there to the right in front of the building stood a massive bronze sculpture of an elephant by Emmanuel Frémiet (1824-1910), a French sculptor known as the “the leading sculptor of animals in his day.”

Before leaving Paris, I’d like to comment on the grey cobbled-stoned streets of the city, a sight quaintly charming for its age and history, so dissimilar to the asphalt greyness of Toronto. A couple of minutes’ walk from our hotel led us to the walkway called Passage De L’Yonne featuring sidewalk cafés and bars which, being modest in price and appearance, were well patronised by the locals and tourists. We had lunch at one such small café named Hippopotamus, after which we threaded our way past the cobbled alley to find the train station Cour St-Émilion close by.

Even the wide avenue leading to the Arc de Triomphe is laid out with beige paving stones but flat surfaced in contrast to the uneven, over-trod look of the cobblestones elsewhere in the city. The bronze life-size statue of Charles de Gaulle walking towards the triumphal arch along the Champs Elysées is memorable, recalling the French leader’s exhilaration over the liberation of Paris in August 1944.

And, finally, the courtyard of our hotel Pullman Paris Bercy displayed a touch of elegance and beauty by installing a lovely marble statue called Plenitude by Florence Ponthaud-Neyrat, of a squatting nude peering into her reflection in a shallow pool of water. The artist carved the white statue in 2000 from marble imported from Carrera in Italy. As though there wasn’t enough plenitude of art and beauty in Paris, this fullness on Rue de Libourne seemed like gilding the lily.

The above essay is from the author’s forthcoming travelogue Tour de France, which he visited in September 2009. Ben Antao, a Canadian Goan living in Toronto, is a journalist and novelist who has published five novels and several short stories and non-fiction. Blood & Nemesis, Penance, The Tailor’s Daughter, Living on the Market and The Priest and His Karma are his novels. His non-fiction includes the memoir, Images of the USA (2009) and travelogues Goa A Rediscovery and The Lands of Sicily. His email: ben.antao@gmail.com)