DOI Heft:
No. 251 (March 1914)
DOI Artikel:Segard, Achille: The recent work of Aman Jean
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21209#0094
M. A man Jeans Recent Work
THE RECENT WORK OF AMAN essential factor in this class of picture, constrains
JEAN. BY ACHILLE SEGARD tne art'st to maintain very closely the contact with
objective reality. It is absolutely necessary that
At the present moment M. Aman Jean is at his observation should be serious, profound, and
his zenith. He is in the full tide of his maturity, of attentive ; that it should seize upon all the expres-
his experience, of his talent, and he has succeeded sive characteristics of the physiognomy, of the
in retaining a youthful sensitiveness which awakens attitude, of the gestures of the sitter, and that the
ever anew before all the varied spectacles of nature, observer should be able to recognise in the portrait
Urban and rural scenes, human faces and domestic the construction of the head and of the body, the
interiors, sky effects or the sight of objects bathed just proportions of the masses, the peculiarities of
in the intime atmosphere of rooms in which one the natural colouring, and even those characteristic
can feel the aura of those who inhabit them—all details or idiosyncrasies such as, for instance, any
such are for this artist motives to arouse his asymmetry of the features or chance deforma-
wonder, and each new vision imposes itself through tion of the hands, the shoulders, or the body in
the medium of his eyes upon his ever-sensitive general. And yet a portrait possessed of no further
imagination. Here we have no realist in the narrow merit beyond such exactitude as this would not be
sense that is customarily attributed to that word, a fine portrait. Over and above the outward
He does not copy actuality with that devotion to semblance of the sitter, M. Aman Jean strives
rigorous exactitude adopted by those painters who always to capture such elusive essentials as his
are devoid of imagina-
tion. What he depicts
is a reflection of the
emotion which nature,
which human faces and
inanimate objects arouse
in himself. Nevertheless,
since that emotion is
always of a pictorial order,
we never find stretched
beyond reasonable
bounds in his pictures
that requisite and indis-
pensable link with reality
which every work of art
must establish and
maintain.
Nor does M. Aman
Jean cling to that ob-
jective reality to which
philosophers have given
the designation of Primary
Reality. Through and
beyond this observation
of actualities he desires
to attain to that Secondary
Reality which in the case
of a painter is always of
an emotional nature.
While suggested, in-
deed, by his entire ceuvre,
this fundamental distinc-
tion is particularly in evi-
dence in his portraits.
The likeness, such an study of a woman seated by aman jean
LXI. No. 251.—March 1914
89
THE RECENT WORK OF AMAN essential factor in this class of picture, constrains
JEAN. BY ACHILLE SEGARD tne art'st to maintain very closely the contact with
objective reality. It is absolutely necessary that
At the present moment M. Aman Jean is at his observation should be serious, profound, and
his zenith. He is in the full tide of his maturity, of attentive ; that it should seize upon all the expres-
his experience, of his talent, and he has succeeded sive characteristics of the physiognomy, of the
in retaining a youthful sensitiveness which awakens attitude, of the gestures of the sitter, and that the
ever anew before all the varied spectacles of nature, observer should be able to recognise in the portrait
Urban and rural scenes, human faces and domestic the construction of the head and of the body, the
interiors, sky effects or the sight of objects bathed just proportions of the masses, the peculiarities of
in the intime atmosphere of rooms in which one the natural colouring, and even those characteristic
can feel the aura of those who inhabit them—all details or idiosyncrasies such as, for instance, any
such are for this artist motives to arouse his asymmetry of the features or chance deforma-
wonder, and each new vision imposes itself through tion of the hands, the shoulders, or the body in
the medium of his eyes upon his ever-sensitive general. And yet a portrait possessed of no further
imagination. Here we have no realist in the narrow merit beyond such exactitude as this would not be
sense that is customarily attributed to that word, a fine portrait. Over and above the outward
He does not copy actuality with that devotion to semblance of the sitter, M. Aman Jean strives
rigorous exactitude adopted by those painters who always to capture such elusive essentials as his
are devoid of imagina-
tion. What he depicts
is a reflection of the
emotion which nature,
which human faces and
inanimate objects arouse
in himself. Nevertheless,
since that emotion is
always of a pictorial order,
we never find stretched
beyond reasonable
bounds in his pictures
that requisite and indis-
pensable link with reality
which every work of art
must establish and
maintain.
Nor does M. Aman
Jean cling to that ob-
jective reality to which
philosophers have given
the designation of Primary
Reality. Through and
beyond this observation
of actualities he desires
to attain to that Secondary
Reality which in the case
of a painter is always of
an emotional nature.
While suggested, in-
deed, by his entire ceuvre,
this fundamental distinc-
tion is particularly in evi-
dence in his portraits.
The likeness, such an study of a woman seated by aman jean
LXI. No. 251.—March 1914
89