International studio (33.1907/1908(1908))

Anion Mauve



‘SHEEP IN BARN ’’ (WATER-COLOUR) BY ANTON MAUVE
(By perntissio?i of Messrs. Thos. Agneru Sr Sons and Alessrs. Wallis Sr Son)

missionary Roelofs from his headquarters at
Brussels, preceded that which Millet was afterwards
to exercise in the Low Countries.
One of the first hints from a foreign source which
Mauve accepted was given him, it would appear by
Diaz, whose influence is unmistakable in the toler-
ably early oil painting The Old Barn (reproduced
on page 7). I do not say that in this rich, deco-
rative landscape Mauve deliberately imitates Diaz,
but that the sight of a Diaz has here encouraged
him to follow his natural
bent and lay on pigment
fatly with a generous brush
and secure a fine quality
of paint by the very rough-
ness of the surface. T here
are few Mauves so finely
rugged as this, for without
losing quality his charac-
teristic handling grew
smoother, though it never
became thin or mean. In
\ this he may have learned
something from Daubigny,
from whose work he may
have been encouraged to
lighten his colour scheme
and pitch his landscapes in
a key rather higher and
truer to nature. Mauve’s
colour, as has been said,
was his own, but that in the
works of his best period—
1865-75—may perhaps
claim a closer kinship with
8

the colour of Daubigny
than that of any other
Romanticist.
Enough has been said
to show that Mauve was
under no overwhelming
obligation to any one
painter, though, like every
artist, he was indebted to
many. He took his good
where he found it, but he
went on his own way with-
out turning off to follow
slavishly the path of an-
other. Nature was his first
and most constant guide,
and at her he looked studi-
ously a hundred times for
eveiy glance he gave to her
presentation in art. The progress of his life was as
steady and unsensational as the development of his
painting. He had some struggles at first like a thou-
sand others, but he was fortunately spared the bitter
privations and sufferings which might have delighted
his biographer. The taste to appreciate his work had
been formed by the men of the preceding genera-
tion. At early middle age Mauve was a successful
man, and during his last decade he was over-
whelmed with commissions, and cculd sell any

‘WASHING DAY” (WATER-COLOUR) BY ANTON MAUVE
(By permission of Messrs. Bousso-i, Valadon Sr Co., 7 'he Hague)