DOI Artikel:
Frantz, Henri: A great French landscape painter: Jean Charles Cazin
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43448#0018
Jean Charles Cazin
of Impressionism. Among such are Jongkind,
Boudin, and Lepine, three fine artists who were
unfortunately not understood and appreciated for
many years, but whose achievements are now day
by day more justly appraised. Another such is the
great master, Jean Charles Cazin.
Last spring wras completed the tenth year since
Cazin’s death. Ten years! This is surely a
sufficient lapse of time to permit of an unbiased
and dispassionate judgment being passed upon an
artist’s work. As the years roll by, this painter im-
presses one more and more by his magnificent
qualities. How many talented men there have been
whose value we have exaggerated during their life-
time, while we dispraise them and depreciate their
abilities after their death ! Consider, for instance,
the case of Meissonnier. He was undoubtedly an
exceedingly able “ petit maitre,” and one who
ought by no means to be neglected in a considera-
tion of the history of French painting, by reason of
his qualities of finesse and precision. But fashion
raised him in general estimation to the extent of
considering him an artist of the first rank, but his
work not really justifying the glory thus thrust
upon him, we look upon it to-day from the stand-
point of those who, at the Paris Art Sales, have
assisted in the depopularising of the kind of art
associated with his name.
'Phis is never the case with a man like Cazin whose
talent is entirely the product of artistic power and
truth, and in whose reputation there is nothing in
the smallest degree meretricious. To such a one
each year adds a little more glory and the flight of
time serves only to confirm him in his place as
one of the eternal masters of the art of painting.
In writing the name of Jean Charles Cazin, the
fine, noble figure of the man rises before me in my
memory. I see him again in the imagination, the
master such as he was when he used to come to
the Societe Nationale, of which he was always one
of the most influential and most respected
members. He was a man of medium height; he
had the large and well-developed forehead which
betokens a thoughtful character, and wore his hair.
1
“ CULTURES (S-EINE-ET-MARNE) ”
BY J. C. CAZIN
4
of Impressionism. Among such are Jongkind,
Boudin, and Lepine, three fine artists who were
unfortunately not understood and appreciated for
many years, but whose achievements are now day
by day more justly appraised. Another such is the
great master, Jean Charles Cazin.
Last spring wras completed the tenth year since
Cazin’s death. Ten years! This is surely a
sufficient lapse of time to permit of an unbiased
and dispassionate judgment being passed upon an
artist’s work. As the years roll by, this painter im-
presses one more and more by his magnificent
qualities. How many talented men there have been
whose value we have exaggerated during their life-
time, while we dispraise them and depreciate their
abilities after their death ! Consider, for instance,
the case of Meissonnier. He was undoubtedly an
exceedingly able “ petit maitre,” and one who
ought by no means to be neglected in a considera-
tion of the history of French painting, by reason of
his qualities of finesse and precision. But fashion
raised him in general estimation to the extent of
considering him an artist of the first rank, but his
work not really justifying the glory thus thrust
upon him, we look upon it to-day from the stand-
point of those who, at the Paris Art Sales, have
assisted in the depopularising of the kind of art
associated with his name.
'Phis is never the case with a man like Cazin whose
talent is entirely the product of artistic power and
truth, and in whose reputation there is nothing in
the smallest degree meretricious. To such a one
each year adds a little more glory and the flight of
time serves only to confirm him in his place as
one of the eternal masters of the art of painting.
In writing the name of Jean Charles Cazin, the
fine, noble figure of the man rises before me in my
memory. I see him again in the imagination, the
master such as he was when he used to come to
the Societe Nationale, of which he was always one
of the most influential and most respected
members. He was a man of medium height; he
had the large and well-developed forehead which
betokens a thoughtful character, and wore his hair.
1
“ CULTURES (S-EINE-ET-MARNE) ”
BY J. C. CAZIN
4