DOI Heft:
Nr. 120 (March 1903)
DOI Artikel:Uzanne, Octave: Frédéric Houbron: a painter of Paris
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19878#0096
Frederic
Houbron
temperament. For years, with wonderful tenacity
and adaptability, he forced himself to paint pretty
fans and other trifles of the sort mostly affected
by young ladies as a drawing-room pastime. Now
and again, however, drawn out of doors by the
free air, the glowing life of the streets, the sight
of the shop fronts, the exhibitions, the galleries,
he would rush away and paint for his own pleasure,
paint in obedience to the fresh and eager talent
blossoming within him.
Each year the Salon received one of these timid
studies, sincerely conceived in his spare hours in
the full light of day and in the open air. And while,
in this modest way, his reputation, destined to grow
great, was being made secure, Frederic Houbron,
tormented, as all true colourists are, by the material
difficulties which, together with certain strong
advantages, are presented by water-colour painting,
gradually came to use the combination of water-
colours and oils wherewith later he produced such
striking effects. Thus he was enabled to attempt
the bold studies from nature in which he skilfully
applied various sorts of colouring materials. His
process, in relation to the ever-changing poem of
the landscape, was of extraordinary service to him.
It may be said that, having created his own
technical instrument, he used it to the full extent of
his natural talent, applying himself, according to the
lesser or greater duration of the impression, to note
his open-air studies alternately in water-colour and
in oil, and on the same pamieau.
Soon his sphere began to widen, and feeling
more confident in the resources of his palette, he
was ^seized with a desire to attempt subjects to
which he might apply the results of his experi-
ments in new processes. The simplicity of rural
scenes, the happy calm of the toiling country,
attracted him with their rustic poetry. So Houbron
studied the meadows and the flocks, and with
attentive touch painted the harvesters working in
the fields. The banks of the Seine, whose
capricious course made him acquainted with all
the loveliest spots in the He de France, revealed
to him the restless life of the waters, the reflec-
tion of tree and cloud, the infinite shimmering of
its ripples in the sunlight. He loved these green
'SOUS LE PONT LOUIS PHILIPPE " « BY FREDERIC HOUBRON
84
Houbron
temperament. For years, with wonderful tenacity
and adaptability, he forced himself to paint pretty
fans and other trifles of the sort mostly affected
by young ladies as a drawing-room pastime. Now
and again, however, drawn out of doors by the
free air, the glowing life of the streets, the sight
of the shop fronts, the exhibitions, the galleries,
he would rush away and paint for his own pleasure,
paint in obedience to the fresh and eager talent
blossoming within him.
Each year the Salon received one of these timid
studies, sincerely conceived in his spare hours in
the full light of day and in the open air. And while,
in this modest way, his reputation, destined to grow
great, was being made secure, Frederic Houbron,
tormented, as all true colourists are, by the material
difficulties which, together with certain strong
advantages, are presented by water-colour painting,
gradually came to use the combination of water-
colours and oils wherewith later he produced such
striking effects. Thus he was enabled to attempt
the bold studies from nature in which he skilfully
applied various sorts of colouring materials. His
process, in relation to the ever-changing poem of
the landscape, was of extraordinary service to him.
It may be said that, having created his own
technical instrument, he used it to the full extent of
his natural talent, applying himself, according to the
lesser or greater duration of the impression, to note
his open-air studies alternately in water-colour and
in oil, and on the same pamieau.
Soon his sphere began to widen, and feeling
more confident in the resources of his palette, he
was ^seized with a desire to attempt subjects to
which he might apply the results of his experi-
ments in new processes. The simplicity of rural
scenes, the happy calm of the toiling country,
attracted him with their rustic poetry. So Houbron
studied the meadows and the flocks, and with
attentive touch painted the harvesters working in
the fields. The banks of the Seine, whose
capricious course made him acquainted with all
the loveliest spots in the He de France, revealed
to him the restless life of the waters, the reflec-
tion of tree and cloud, the infinite shimmering of
its ripples in the sunlight. He loved these green
'SOUS LE PONT LOUIS PHILIPPE " « BY FREDERIC HOUBRON
84