Studio: international art (56.1912)

Leanaro Ramon Garrido

C

EANDRO RAMON GARRIDO: A
NOTE ON THE MAN AND HIS
WORK. BY J. QUIGLEY.

It is about three years since Leandro Garrido
died at Grasse, at what he considered to be the
very outset of his career, the very beginning of all
he had hoped to achieve. But the art world had
already recognised him as a painter of individual
talent, and in France, especially, he had received
signal honours. As one surveys the list of living
artists, there seems no one to fill the precise place
Garrido had made for himself as a painter of genre
and figure subjects. He possessed the power that
was Chardin’s of treating everyday subjects with
distinction. All his work shows that he combined
the gift of seeing things in their right relation
with that sureness in the use of his medium which
results from persistent
study and practice. In
depicting a human being
or a piece of still-life he
was always the informed
painter, one who felt
delight in paint for its own
sake, delight in rendering
form and colour with extra-
ordinary verve and ap-
parent facility.

There are those who
object that Garrido treated
the still-life in a genre pic-
ture as of equal importance
with the living model, but
in a brief note one cannot
enter upon discussion. It
is enough to say at this
point that the painter’s
thoroughness in detail did
not detract from the main
scheme and rhythm of his
compositions, and this
thoroughness is yet another
proof of his strenuous and
earnest devotion to his art.

If ever a painter was quali-
fied to achieve success by
haphazard methods it was
Garrido. Had he chosen
to be eccentric, and to
attract those who seek
sensation in art, he might
have rivalled the most
bizarre amongthe moderns. “ the fish-wife ’

116

But he was always deliberate, even in the choice of
unpleasing subjects that presented fresh problems
for his brush, and in those studies of facial expres-
sion that have evoked adverse criticism. “ Le
rieur Garrido,” as he has been called, on account of
his preference for smiling faces, found the study of
fleeting expression more attractive than statuesque
repose, but his workmanship does not rest upon
ephemeral ideals, and the pictures purchased for
public galleries and private collections will give
lasting testimony to the value of his art. Even the
studies in paint and charcoal that he left behind
(never exhibited until after his death) show the
same instinct for deliberate work, and are in them-
selves sufficient to make a reputation.

To appreciate fully his work it is important to
know something of the man’s life and circumstances.
All his life he had battled against ill-health, but by

:FROM THE OIL PAINTING BY L. R. GARRIDO