Friday, December 14, 2018

Moonlight and Mist by Henri Le Sidaner

Henri Le Sidaner
Clair de lune à Gerberoy
1904
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

Henri Le Sidaner
Clair de lune
before 1925
oil on canvas
Lotherton Hall, Leeds Museums and Galleries, West Yorkshire

Henri Le Sidaner
Clair de lune
before 1939
oil on canvas
Paisley Art Institute Collection, Scotland

Henri Le Sidaner
A Beauvais Square by Moonlight
1900
oil on canvas
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

"Henri Eugène Le Sidaner began his career around 1880 as a young apprentice of Alexandre Cabanel at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.  Soon he was seduced by the Parisian artistic fervour, particularly the works of both the Impressionists and the post-Impressionists.  After a few months, repressed by the academic milieu, the painter abruptly decided to settle in Étaples, a small village near Pas-de-Calais, where he finished his training in solitude.  Distant from the contemporary artistic mainstreams of the capital, Le Sidaner mainly represented Northern landscapes filled with humble personages, adopting a manner that both recalled the Naturalism of Corot and the immediacy of the Impressionists.  Nevertheless, his poetic atmospheres were permeated with a personal intimate sentimenatalism.  In 1887 the painter exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français and from 1892 at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts.  From 1892 until 1894 Le Sidaner traveled through Holland and Italy, and eventually returned to Paris where he approached the Symbolist circles and struck up friendships with both Henri Martin and Ernest Laurent.  By that time the artist had brought about a shift in language by adopting a more classical formula in depicting his melancholic atmospheres.  In an earlier phase, his subject-matter was often focused on young women within crepuscular landscapes . . .  Later his choice privileged private scenarios devoid of human presence and rendered with diffused light and warm tones.  During his life the painter was often awarded prizes, such as the bronze medal at the Exposition Universelle in 1900, and was lavishly represented by both private galleries (Paris, Galerie George Petit) and temporary exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States.  Le Sidaner kept traveling throughout his career (Venice, London, etc.), refining his technique and eventually moved to Versailles, where he died in 1939."

– Dominique Lora, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Henri Le Sidaner
Gypsy Wagon in Moonlight
before 1922
oil on canvas
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Henri Le Sidaner
L'Île Madre - Clair de lune
1908-1909
oil on canvas
Walker Art Gallery, Manchester

Henri Le Sidaner
The Snow
1901
oil on canvas
Burrell Collection, Glasgow

Henri Le Sidaner
The Lighted Window
1905-1906
oil and chalk on paper, mounted on panel
Burrell Collection, Glasgow

Henri Le Sidaner
An Autumn Evening
1895
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Henri Le Sidaner
A Canal in Bruges at Dusk
ca. 1898
oil on canvas
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Henri Le Sidaner
Corner of Versailles Park
before 1936
oil on panel
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, Lancashire

Henri Le Sidaner
House of Roses
before 1917
oil on canvas
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Henri Le Sidaner
Garden by a Pool
before 1932
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Henri Le Sidaner
The Gateway
1902
pastel on paper
University of Dundee Art Collections, Scotland