DOI Heft:
Nr. 150 (September 1905)
DOI Artikel:Frantz, Henri: The exhibition of Besnard's works in Paris
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20712#0320
Exhibition of Besnards PVorks
widely different, yet each incomparable in its own
way. Special mention should be made of his
pastels. Pastel, which he manages admirably,
seems to be an ideal instrument for him, capable
of noting down directly, by first intention, the
unceasing witchery and most fugitive effects of
light; and nothing can surpass the velvet touch
of his crayons in some of these heads of women,
where a gentle radiance plays upon the white
skin, gilds the masses of hair, and lights up
brilliant eyes or iridescent pearls.
Here, as everywhere, the skill of Besnard’s crafts-
manship is such that the artist need concern him-
self no further with the material side; and is not
this the supreme achievement of art ?
Besnard is not only the poet of womanhood; he
is the observant recorder of nature. His glance
has ranged with vigilant alertness from the Basque
seashores to the Channel
coast; he has seen all
the miracles of daybreak
upon the fluid opal of the
lakes of Savoy in the
mysterious shadow of the
mountains, and he has
observed the hard, pene-
trating glare of Andalusia.
And Besnard is also an
orientalist of the first
order. In his exhibition
there is a series of highly
interesting works, such as
Les Femmes Arabes, Le
Port d’Alger, La Rue de
Blidah, Cheval A rabe,
Etude d’Arabe, and the
Maison a la Kasbah,
which are among the most
wonderful expositions of
the East.
The fact that Besnard
is also a decorator is
here attested by various
sketches and cartoons.
It would, indeed, have
been a great pity not to
remind us of the poetic
creator of thelle Heureuse,
and of so many beautiful
mural paintings. Madame
Charlotte Besnard, the
wife, friend, and confidante
of the great artist, writes
in her introduction to the pastel portrait
master’s work: “Everything in Besnard’s work will
have assisted in this culmination of his personal
expression —mural painting, to wit : his pictures,
the poetry of which is easily discerned, their pic-
turesque quality never fettering his style; his
portrait-work, strengthening his penetrative ana-
lysis of types and characters; his studies, giving
him direct contact with the realities which form
the point of departure for his imagination; and,
finally, his incisive etchings. All this, in addition
to his love of light, which he studies in all the
logical principles that govern its action and re-
action upon objects, will develop his faculty of
conceiving natural arrangements and evoking
aesthetic emotion by means of his setting; for it
will enable him rightly to place the dramas and
idylls which he intends to depict.”
With his decoration of the Ecole de Pharmacie,
(In the Georges Petit Collection) BY A. besnard
302
widely different, yet each incomparable in its own
way. Special mention should be made of his
pastels. Pastel, which he manages admirably,
seems to be an ideal instrument for him, capable
of noting down directly, by first intention, the
unceasing witchery and most fugitive effects of
light; and nothing can surpass the velvet touch
of his crayons in some of these heads of women,
where a gentle radiance plays upon the white
skin, gilds the masses of hair, and lights up
brilliant eyes or iridescent pearls.
Here, as everywhere, the skill of Besnard’s crafts-
manship is such that the artist need concern him-
self no further with the material side; and is not
this the supreme achievement of art ?
Besnard is not only the poet of womanhood; he
is the observant recorder of nature. His glance
has ranged with vigilant alertness from the Basque
seashores to the Channel
coast; he has seen all
the miracles of daybreak
upon the fluid opal of the
lakes of Savoy in the
mysterious shadow of the
mountains, and he has
observed the hard, pene-
trating glare of Andalusia.
And Besnard is also an
orientalist of the first
order. In his exhibition
there is a series of highly
interesting works, such as
Les Femmes Arabes, Le
Port d’Alger, La Rue de
Blidah, Cheval A rabe,
Etude d’Arabe, and the
Maison a la Kasbah,
which are among the most
wonderful expositions of
the East.
The fact that Besnard
is also a decorator is
here attested by various
sketches and cartoons.
It would, indeed, have
been a great pity not to
remind us of the poetic
creator of thelle Heureuse,
and of so many beautiful
mural paintings. Madame
Charlotte Besnard, the
wife, friend, and confidante
of the great artist, writes
in her introduction to the pastel portrait
master’s work: “Everything in Besnard’s work will
have assisted in this culmination of his personal
expression —mural painting, to wit : his pictures,
the poetry of which is easily discerned, their pic-
turesque quality never fettering his style; his
portrait-work, strengthening his penetrative ana-
lysis of types and characters; his studies, giving
him direct contact with the realities which form
the point of departure for his imagination; and,
finally, his incisive etchings. All this, in addition
to his love of light, which he studies in all the
logical principles that govern its action and re-
action upon objects, will develop his faculty of
conceiving natural arrangements and evoking
aesthetic emotion by means of his setting; for it
will enable him rightly to place the dramas and
idylls which he intends to depict.”
With his decoration of the Ecole de Pharmacie,
(In the Georges Petit Collection) BY A. besnard
302