Page 59 - Studio International - June 1970

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leads to a piquant Romanticism, not to any Eugène Carrière (1849-1906)
real progress'. Thus Carrière now has only a Maternité (Etude pour le Sommeil) c. 1899-1900
Oil on canvas
walk-on role in modern art history, as 21 x 28 in.
organizer, supporter and teacher. Coll: Mme Taigny
This does him no justice. I don't propose to 9
Eugène Carrière
argue that he was one of the major forces that Tête de Femme (Marguerite) c. 1885
shaped modern art. But he did contribute Oil on canvas
15⅜ x 11½ in.
something in his art that was valid and his
own, that did have evident influence, and
that comes surprisingly close to what is
honoured in other, later artists whom we
respect as pioneers. He has certainly been
assessed falsely.
The trouble stems from the association with
Symbolism. None of the painters of the time
wears the symbolist label comfortably. Carrière
was socially involved with the major painters
thought of as allies by the symbolist writers —
Puvis, Redon, Gauguin (a characteristic ex-
change took place in 1891 when he painted a
portrait of Gauguin and Gauguin gave him a
self-portrait). And the sfumato technique he
used so radically seemed to answer the sym-
bolist call for a 'misty art' expressive of dreams from that, marked by a gradual dismissal of the Paris sculpture scene in trying to assess
and dark mysteries. The go-ahead writers of colour in favour of a subtle monochromati- this impact, but Rosso himself stressed the
that generation were mostly Symbolists of a cism in which density becomes as important essential unity of painting and sculpture, con-
sort, and inevitably they praised and blamed as tone—this can be seen as an answer to the ceived his sculptures as to be seen from one
in terms of Symbolism. basic assumptions of Impressionism (and is side, and worked in them towards a spatial
In this sense Rewald was right: Carrière was paralleled in some respects by Seurat's draw- ambiguity almost identical with that of paint-
not a good Symbolist. He was not a Symbolist ings), as well as a response to photography. ing.
at all. Occasionally he painted a picture with Photography had shown misty spaces and Some of the praise that the Futurists were to
symbolist implications (e.g. Claire de Lune in sudden highlights to be part of reality and not bestow on Rosso for his demonstration of the
Cleveland). He likewise painted two or three special effects reserved to Symbolism. indivisibility of object and ambiance could
religious subjects. Otherwise he painted a few But Carrière's vision is far from photographic. well have gone to Carrière also, but by that
landscapes and, for the rest, portraits : por- Quite apart from his abstract compositional time the 'peintre des Maternités' (as friendly
traits of individuals, as such, and pictures of and expressive devices, there is in his paint- critics had called him) had already sunk out
his wife and six children under generalizing ings an emphasis on the plasticity and mobility of sight beneath the weight of rhetoric. Among
titles—Maternité, Le Baiser du Soir, Le Sommeil. of living form that is outside the range of painters he had demonstrably influenced
To make him a Symbolist we have to force photography and was then not known to Gauguin, less demonstrably Munch, and his
mysteriousness on him. His own view of life painting. Its affiliations, significantly, are with upholding of the expressive and constructive
was open and inclusive, accepting birth and sculpture. Rodin's enthusiasm for Carrière's values of tone, in decades much devoted to
death as accents in an unending physical cycle. work is well known. He owned several Car- colour, must have contributed to the refine-
He saw science, like art, as a function of rières (now in the Rodin Museum) and is ments of the Intimists. Of the new radicals
human love. From his writings we know he reported to have said that `Carrière too is a only the young Picasso appears to have
was not concerned with Symbolism except in sculptor'. One hesitates to speak of a specific honoured him, and then mostly for the
the most immediate sense, in which a caress point of influence but the points of contact are emotionally affecting factors in his work which
hints at all caresses and a baby at its mother's many and it is fair to say that Rodin's en- are echoed in several Blue Period pictures.
breast expresses all giving and taking. thusiasms tended to what he found directly `And so, my dear daughter', Carrière wrote to
When we stop looking for the deep significance meaningful. Louis Vauxcelles, around at the his Marguerite, a budding painter (one of his
of his pictures we can also deal with the charge time, praised Carrière's 'magnificent sculp- sons, Jean-René, became a well-known sculp-
of sentimentality. Sentiment, yes. The emo- tural construction' and later spoke of Car- tor), 'beware of literature; our profession is
tions expressed by his work are normal rière as one of two 'most fruitful' influences on too material for that and demands proof with-
enough, and we should ask ourselves what Rodin. out phrases.' Two sentences from his own
makes us so defensive about them. It's the The other he named was Medardo Rosso, the notes certainly tell us more about his art than
sticky phrases of his commentators that have younger Italian sculptor who spent several the literature erected around him. 'Art is a
inflated them. Carrière was primarily, pas- years in Paris. The similarities in matter and manifestation of the awareness we have of our
sionately and modestly, a visual painter and vision are so many that one cannot imagine rapports with nature', and 'In nature every-
what looks like overemphasis in some pictures Rosso left untouched by the Carrières he can thing is volumes, planes and proportions,
is actually a product of his long research. have seen at Rodin's, in special exhibitions in everything is architecture'. Human affections
As a visual painter he was very much a man 1891 and 1896 and in the annual shows of the guided him towards his characteristic subject-
of the later nineteenth century, especially in Société Nationale. Carrière and Rosso are, matter, but this need no longer blind us to the
his balancing of forms keenly observed in allowing for the medium each used, twin fact that his methods were constructive and
light and atmosphere against a concern for artists. Rosso was the younger by nine years. ultimately austere. As Rodin wrote of him, in
the picture surface and its dynamic structur- His work had matured by the time he reached a forgotten article of 1904: 'His power lies in
ing in Art Nouveau, i.e. anti-classical, terms. Paris (probably in 1884), but it certainly structure'. q
His immediate heritage was Millet, Daumier developed further under the impact of what
and the Fragonard revival. His development he saw there. Writers have usually examined NORBERT LYNTON
273