Le Moulin de Douvres, Torcy

Painted circa 1907, Le Moulin de Douvres, Torcy invites you to a serene world where nature’s beauty unfolds. This captivating landscape captures the delicate dance of light and shadow on a secluded river. The artist’s brushstrokes evoke a sense of calm, while the lush foliage and distant bridge beckon the viewer to explore further. The painter skilfully balances realism and impressionism, allowing us to feel the gentle ripples on the water’s surface and hear the rustle of leaves.

Moulin de Douvres, Torcy, on the river Marne, was originally a cereal mill dating back to the end of the 14th century and beginning of the 15th century. It was burnt down by the duke of Parma, Alexander Farnese and the Spanish army of Phillip II in the Wars of Religion in 1590 during the assault on Lagny but was later rebuilt in 1629.

The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Madame de la Ville Fromoit and Madame Christine Lenoir.

Henri Lebasque

Henri Lebasque, born in Champigné, France, in 1865, left behind a vibrant artistic legacy. Inspired by fellow painters Édouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard, Lebasque’s work reflects the influence of Les Nabis, a group of Intimist artists. His time in the sun-soaked landscapes of the South of France transformed his colour palette, leading him to fully embrace the vibrant Fauvist style.

Lebasque was acknowledged as an outstanding artist at Parisian galleries and annual salon exhibitions, he studied with the great academic masters of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, receiving tutelage at the atelier of the renowned Leon Bonnart, official portraitist to many important figures of the Third Republic, and a painter of a brilliant portrait of Victor Hugo. As a young man entering the Parisian art world, Lebasque’s arrival coincided with the acceptance of Impressionism with the public and critics, creating an atmosphere of exciting innovations in painting such as those from artists like Cezanne.

Throughout his career, Lebasque painted serene family scenes, landscapes, and domestic interiors, capturing moments of quiet beauty. These scenes of intimacy within the domestic sphere in Lebasque’s subject matter convey the universal familiarity of home and family similar to that realised by Bonnard and Vuillard. There is also a sense of calm infused in Lebasque’s painting which celebrates the fullness and richness of life.

At the studio where Lebasque first studied, Leon Bonnart’s emphasis upon draughtsmanship and mural decorations found inspiration in Lebasque’s own approach to painting. He was an excellent draughtsman, but he chose a looser form of expression more akin to his peers than to his academic masters. Lebasque absorbed fresh ideas from Vuillard and Bonnard, founders of the ‘Nabi’ group, who saw themselves as harbingers of a new painting style.

While Lebasque was absorbing the new painting styles of his peers, he was also studying classical forms of painting, taking lessons from Camille Pissarro, the aging Impressionist master, who later praised Lebasque’s work at the Salon des Independants in 1902. Lebasque also extracted much from formal technique examination, as practiced by Georges Seurat. Seurat developed techniques later labelled Divisionism and Pointillism, which were highly intellectual approaches to the arrangements of colours and paint on the canvas. Seurats’s main contribution, and the most lasting in terms of the development of Lebasque’s personal style, was an understanding of the colour theories devised in the late 1830’s by the artist Chevreul, stressing the use of complementary colours in shading. Lebasque’s first exposure to these theories was most likely from conversations with his friend Paul Signac, a pupil of Seurat’s.

Critics celebrated his unique fusion of form and colour, setting him apart from other Fauvists. As a founding member of the Salon d’Automne in 1903, alongside his friend Henri Matisse, Lebasque exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants. Notably, Georges Rouault, André Derain, Henri Ottmann, Édouard Vuillard, and Matisse also participated in that exhibition.

Often hailed as “the painter of joy and light,” Lebasque skilfully portrayed the sun-dappled landscapes and opulent interiors of the French Riviera. His compositions, bridging Impressionism and Fauvism, reveal a keen sensitivity to shifting natural light and an unapologetic embrace of expressive colours and gestures, evoking powerful emotions.

Museums

Musee d’Orsay, Paris
Museum of Modern Art, New York
National Gallery of Washington, D.C
The National Museum of Western Art, Japan
Museo de Arte de Ponce
Museum of Fine Arts of Nancy
Wallraf-Richartz Museum
The Quay at St Pierre in Cannes
Musee d’Art et d’Industrie de Roubaix
Salon Nationale des Beaux Arts, Paris
Petit Palais Paris
Galerie Vendome

Literature

HENRI LEBASQUE : Catalogue Raisonné –  Bazetoux; Denise; Lebasque, Henri