DOI Artikel:
Uzanne, Octave: Modern French pastellists: Charles Léandre
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20710#0261
Charles Ldandre
the date of the foundation of the Rire, to the
illustration of which journal he was called on to
devote himself almost every week, Le'andre found
little appreciation save on the part of most of his
fellow artists, a few art publishers, and a certain
number of cultured amateurs, who even then
sought after his drawings, his pictures, and especially
his pastels—delightful things, opulent in material,
extraordinary in their freedom and grace, exquisite
in texture, clear, bold, ingenious in colouring, and
harmonious altogether.
Leandre, who like Gaston La Touche, is a pure
Norman, born in the neighbourhood of Bagnoles-
de-L'Orme, came to Paris some little time before
1880. While still quite young he decided to study
drawing with a worthy old painter of historical and
decorative subjects, Bin by name. In his studio
Leandre had as comrades, Eliot, Thevenot, Laurent,
Des Rousseaux, and de Richemond, and as pre-
decessor, Joseph Blanc, now a member of the
Institute.
About the year 1885, Leandre entered the studio
of Cabanel, which still enjoyed a high reputation,
but the old painter of feminine nudity was not
destined to do much more. Full of years and
honours, after having guided the steps of so many
distinguished pupils into the path of glory, he ex-
pired a few years later, leaving his official mantle
on the shoulders of his disciple Leandre, whom
Cabanel thought to be already on the high road to
Rome and destined for the Academies. The young
artist escaped this solemn destiny, and he may be
congratulated thereon. Left to his own resources
after the decease of the great apostle of cold nude
mythology, he was obliged, ere he discovered his
triumphal course, to seek his venelle, as they call it
in Normandy. He composed a number of studies
of his native landscape, and devoted himself
especially to portrait work, using for choice the
pastel process, which even to the present day
remains his finest method of interpretation.
With Charles Leandre there is considerable indi-
viduality, both in his manner of artistic vision and
in his execution. His principle, he declared to
me when I paid him a visit at his Montmartre
studio, is to seek out with infinite patience the
character of his subjects, and to draw again and
again the faces he desires to paint, while accentu-
ating their expression almost to the borderland ot
caricature. By this means it is that the portraits
bearing his signature are so extremely poussis, and
stand out in strong relief, life like in aspect, and
showing a resemblance such as few painters of to-
day succeed in giving to the features they repro-
duce. In his view colour and form are indissolubly
united—of necessity wedded, so to speak—the one
being the complement of the other. He holds
that as decoration is to architecture, so is colour to
LANDSCAPE FROM THS PASTEL BV CHARLES LEANDRE
244
the date of the foundation of the Rire, to the
illustration of which journal he was called on to
devote himself almost every week, Le'andre found
little appreciation save on the part of most of his
fellow artists, a few art publishers, and a certain
number of cultured amateurs, who even then
sought after his drawings, his pictures, and especially
his pastels—delightful things, opulent in material,
extraordinary in their freedom and grace, exquisite
in texture, clear, bold, ingenious in colouring, and
harmonious altogether.
Leandre, who like Gaston La Touche, is a pure
Norman, born in the neighbourhood of Bagnoles-
de-L'Orme, came to Paris some little time before
1880. While still quite young he decided to study
drawing with a worthy old painter of historical and
decorative subjects, Bin by name. In his studio
Leandre had as comrades, Eliot, Thevenot, Laurent,
Des Rousseaux, and de Richemond, and as pre-
decessor, Joseph Blanc, now a member of the
Institute.
About the year 1885, Leandre entered the studio
of Cabanel, which still enjoyed a high reputation,
but the old painter of feminine nudity was not
destined to do much more. Full of years and
honours, after having guided the steps of so many
distinguished pupils into the path of glory, he ex-
pired a few years later, leaving his official mantle
on the shoulders of his disciple Leandre, whom
Cabanel thought to be already on the high road to
Rome and destined for the Academies. The young
artist escaped this solemn destiny, and he may be
congratulated thereon. Left to his own resources
after the decease of the great apostle of cold nude
mythology, he was obliged, ere he discovered his
triumphal course, to seek his venelle, as they call it
in Normandy. He composed a number of studies
of his native landscape, and devoted himself
especially to portrait work, using for choice the
pastel process, which even to the present day
remains his finest method of interpretation.
With Charles Leandre there is considerable indi-
viduality, both in his manner of artistic vision and
in his execution. His principle, he declared to
me when I paid him a visit at his Montmartre
studio, is to seek out with infinite patience the
character of his subjects, and to draw again and
again the faces he desires to paint, while accentu-
ating their expression almost to the borderland ot
caricature. By this means it is that the portraits
bearing his signature are so extremely poussis, and
stand out in strong relief, life like in aspect, and
showing a resemblance such as few painters of to-
day succeed in giving to the features they repro-
duce. In his view colour and form are indissolubly
united—of necessity wedded, so to speak—the one
being the complement of the other. He holds
that as decoration is to architecture, so is colour to
LANDSCAPE FROM THS PASTEL BV CHARLES LEANDRE
244