DOI Heft:
No. 226 (January 1912)
DOI Artikel:Segard, Achille: Charles Cottet, painter of breton life and scenes
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21155#0292
Charles Cottefs Breton Pictures
seductive, those which are most akin to the ex-
periments of the Impressionists, and which, in
outward seeming at any rate, appear to be painted
with greatest freshness of vision and of execution,
are the studies which Cottet did in Constantinople
in 1903 Strictly speaking, these have practically
no subject; just a little bit of landscape, a little
piece of the sea, a little sky, and there it is ! But
rendered in a range of most delicate blues and
greens, of tender pinks and lilacs, they are delicious.
Nevertheless, one cannot but regard them, despite
their unquestionable charm, as otherwise than
exercises in virtuosity. M. Cottet, one feels, has
painted them as a relaxation for his eyes, to refresh
his vision, and in executing them has given free
licence to his lightness of touch ; it may be also
that he felt the need of a change from his Breton
landscapes, in which he has for so long compelled
himself to concentrate all his energies and to
analyse his impressions in order to develop daily
a new and ever-increasing profundity of significance
in his work.
Venice also afforded him new themes in which
to exhibit his masterly technique, and in these
studies of his we find flamboyant harmonies of
glorious reds swelling out tumultuously in a kind
of visual intoxication. But this again is merely
the painter's relaxation.
What then is the essential trait in Charles Cottet's
character which has made it impossible for him to
find, save in a single province, the opportunity of
expressing his artistic ideals to their fullest extent ?
It is, of course, his Breton pictures to which I refer.
In these scenes of mourning and of humble fisher-
folk's lives we find the note which gives to Cottet's
work its unity, its stability, its accent of calm
gravity, its powerful tranquillity, and its lasting
force. In these works he reveals himself not
merely as a great craftsman in paint but as the pos-
sessor of a tender and profoundly meditative soul.
Painted as they are in large masses of colour in
a range of tones which harmonise with and ex-
plain each other, these pictures, some of which
are of immense proportions, possess a sober and
restrained beauty, are deeply imbued with senti-
ment, and are, moreover, of a pronouncedly
decorative arrangement. The blacks, which in
the hands of all great painters are never, strictly
speaking, blacks at all, here play a soothing rdle
and give an accent of undoubted individuality.
They invest these great harmonies of the sky, the
earth, and of humanity with an immense luminous
" LA PROCESSION
BY CHARLES COTTET
seductive, those which are most akin to the ex-
periments of the Impressionists, and which, in
outward seeming at any rate, appear to be painted
with greatest freshness of vision and of execution,
are the studies which Cottet did in Constantinople
in 1903 Strictly speaking, these have practically
no subject; just a little bit of landscape, a little
piece of the sea, a little sky, and there it is ! But
rendered in a range of most delicate blues and
greens, of tender pinks and lilacs, they are delicious.
Nevertheless, one cannot but regard them, despite
their unquestionable charm, as otherwise than
exercises in virtuosity. M. Cottet, one feels, has
painted them as a relaxation for his eyes, to refresh
his vision, and in executing them has given free
licence to his lightness of touch ; it may be also
that he felt the need of a change from his Breton
landscapes, in which he has for so long compelled
himself to concentrate all his energies and to
analyse his impressions in order to develop daily
a new and ever-increasing profundity of significance
in his work.
Venice also afforded him new themes in which
to exhibit his masterly technique, and in these
studies of his we find flamboyant harmonies of
glorious reds swelling out tumultuously in a kind
of visual intoxication. But this again is merely
the painter's relaxation.
What then is the essential trait in Charles Cottet's
character which has made it impossible for him to
find, save in a single province, the opportunity of
expressing his artistic ideals to their fullest extent ?
It is, of course, his Breton pictures to which I refer.
In these scenes of mourning and of humble fisher-
folk's lives we find the note which gives to Cottet's
work its unity, its stability, its accent of calm
gravity, its powerful tranquillity, and its lasting
force. In these works he reveals himself not
merely as a great craftsman in paint but as the pos-
sessor of a tender and profoundly meditative soul.
Painted as they are in large masses of colour in
a range of tones which harmonise with and ex-
plain each other, these pictures, some of which
are of immense proportions, possess a sober and
restrained beauty, are deeply imbued with senti-
ment, and are, moreover, of a pronouncedly
decorative arrangement. The blacks, which in
the hands of all great painters are never, strictly
speaking, blacks at all, here play a soothing rdle
and give an accent of undoubted individuality.
They invest these great harmonies of the sky, the
earth, and of humanity with an immense luminous
" LA PROCESSION
BY CHARLES COTTET