DOI Heft:
No. 223 (October 1911)
DOI Artikel:Frantz, Henri: A great french landscape painter: Jean Charles Cazin
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21155#0031
Jean Charles Cazin
MOULIN BLANC" (1899) BY J. C. CAZIN
always rather indifferent to the opinion ot the
public. He lived in too close touch with nature
to care aught for the opinion of the crowd, he
knew himself to be in intimate communion with
the great spectacles of the universe, he was under-
stood by his own people and by certain dis-
tinguished men who were his friends, and this
sufficed him. He was never tormented by a thirst
for riches, and never did anything to try and sell
his pictures to better advantage.
After these first attempts to show at the Salons,
Cazin devoted himself for several years to studying
at the Ecole nationalede Dessin, the Ecole speciale
d'Architecture, and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts
at Tours. Between 1871 and 1875, ne travelled
much in England, Italy, and in Holland, of which
he was particularly fond. All this time he was
evolving and creating for himself his own method
of work and that technique which gives so personal
a touch to even the least important of his pictures.
When we find ourselves in front of one of these
landscapes of Cazin, so simple and yet so beautiful,
we cannot help being captivated by the spell ot
natural beauty and charm, and we forget the metier.
We are by no means deceived ; it is simply that
it is the acme of artistic achievement to make us
forget the medium, and by its very perfectness to
render the technique non-insistent. For there is no
gainsaying the fact that Cazin knew an enormous
amount about his art, but he never paraded his
technique or advertised his adroitness; he seems
almost to have tried to hide his dexterity. It is
sufficient to have seen certain drawings by Cazin,
of which a very fine exhibition was held some
three years ago, in order to thoroughly appreciate
the extent of his knowledge.
Cazin, besides being a master with the brush, was
also an adept with the pencil and pastel, and
delighted to mix wash with his pastel work, while
on occasion he used also to model in wax, and all
this with so profound a science and such sureness
of touch that he was able entirely to forget all
considerations of metier in order to leave himselt
absolutely free to devote his whole attention to
9
MOULIN BLANC" (1899) BY J. C. CAZIN
always rather indifferent to the opinion ot the
public. He lived in too close touch with nature
to care aught for the opinion of the crowd, he
knew himself to be in intimate communion with
the great spectacles of the universe, he was under-
stood by his own people and by certain dis-
tinguished men who were his friends, and this
sufficed him. He was never tormented by a thirst
for riches, and never did anything to try and sell
his pictures to better advantage.
After these first attempts to show at the Salons,
Cazin devoted himself for several years to studying
at the Ecole nationalede Dessin, the Ecole speciale
d'Architecture, and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts
at Tours. Between 1871 and 1875, ne travelled
much in England, Italy, and in Holland, of which
he was particularly fond. All this time he was
evolving and creating for himself his own method
of work and that technique which gives so personal
a touch to even the least important of his pictures.
When we find ourselves in front of one of these
landscapes of Cazin, so simple and yet so beautiful,
we cannot help being captivated by the spell ot
natural beauty and charm, and we forget the metier.
We are by no means deceived ; it is simply that
it is the acme of artistic achievement to make us
forget the medium, and by its very perfectness to
render the technique non-insistent. For there is no
gainsaying the fact that Cazin knew an enormous
amount about his art, but he never paraded his
technique or advertised his adroitness; he seems
almost to have tried to hide his dexterity. It is
sufficient to have seen certain drawings by Cazin,
of which a very fine exhibition was held some
three years ago, in order to thoroughly appreciate
the extent of his knowledge.
Cazin, besides being a master with the brush, was
also an adept with the pencil and pastel, and
delighted to mix wash with his pastel work, while
on occasion he used also to model in wax, and all
this with so profound a science and such sureness
of touch that he was able entirely to forget all
considerations of metier in order to leave himselt
absolutely free to devote his whole attention to
9