Henri Edmond Cross

Baron Hans Eberhard Freiherr von Bodenhausen, Degenerhausen
Baron Hans-Wilke Freiherr von Bodenhausen, Degenerhausen (by descent from the above in 1918)
Baroness Reinhild Freiin von Bodenhausen, Berlin (by descent in 1937)
Galerie Voemel, Berlin (acquired from the above between 1946 and 1950)
Galerie Fine Arts Associates, New York
Mr & Mrs John Hay Whitney, New York (acquired from the above in November 1950)
Mrs John Hay Whitney, New York (1992)
A bequest from the above to the present owner in 1998 

Paris, Société des Artistes indépendants, 1892, no. 316
Paris, Galerie Le Barc de Boutteville, Deuxième exposition des peintres impressionnistes et symbolistes, 1892, no. 133
Paris, Hôtel Brébant, Exposition des peintres néo-impressionnistes, 1892-93, no. 9
Brussels, Les XX, 1893, no. 1
Antwerp, Seconde exposition de l'Association pour l'Art, 1893, no. 1
(possibly) Berlin, Berliner Künstlerhaus, Erste Sonderausstellung, 1927, no. 58
New York, Fine Arts Associates, Henri Edmond Cross, 1951, no. 1, illustrated in the catalogue
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Selections from Five New York Private Collections, 1951
New York, Fine Arts Associates, French Art Around 1900, 1953, no. 7, illustrated in the catalogue
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Paintings from Private Collections, 1955
(possibly) New York, Queens College, 1958
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, The John Hay Whitney Collection, 1983, no. 35, illustrated in colour in the catalogue 
New York, Museum of Modern Art, More Pieces for the Puzzle: Recent Additions to the Collection, 1998
Portland, Portland Museum of Art, Neo-Impressionism: Artists on the Edge, 2002, illustrated in colour in the catalogue 

Charles Saunier, 'Les Indépendants', in La Revue Indépendante, April 1892, p. 44
Yvanhoé Rambosson, 'Deuxième exposition des peintres impressionnistes et symbolistes', in La Plume, 1st August 1892, discussed p. 351
Charles Saunier, 'Exposition des peintres néo-impressionnistes à Paris', in L'Art Moderne, 25th December 1892, p. 412
Letter from Cross to Octave Maus, 3rd January 1893, listed
Raymond Nyst, 'Exposition des XX à Bruxelles', in L'Ermitage, 1893, p. 297
Henry A. La Farge, 'Henri Edmond Cross', in Art News, vol. 50, no. 3, May 1951, illustrated p. 43
John Rewald, 'French Paintings in the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney', in The Connoisseur, April 1956, illustrated p. 138
John Rewald, Post-Impressionism from Van Gogh to Gauguin, New York, 1956, illustrated p. 134
Isabelle Compin, Henri Edmond Cross, Paris, 1964, no. 34, illustrated p. 123
Paysages méditerranéens d'Henri-Edmond Cross (exhibition catalogue), Musée de l'Annonciade, Saint-Tropez, 1990, mentioned
Signac et la libération de la couleur: de Matisse à Mondrian (exhibition catalogue), Münster, Grenoble & Weimar, 1996-97, mentioned p. 120
Le Journal des arts, no. 60, 9th May 1998, mentioned p. 2
Cross et le Néo-Impressionnnisme (exhibition catalogue), Musée de la Chartreuse, Douai, 1998-99, mentioned pp. 30 & 32

Vendanges (Var), also known as The Grape Harvest, depicts a landscape in Cabasson in the south of France. Cross completed this picture in 1892 when Neo-Impressionist painting was at its peak, and it is an extraordinary example of the best of the artist’s efforts during this most important phase of his career. The scene depicts workers in an outdoor setting going about their daily tasks, a motif that had a long, celebrated tradition in the history of French painting, and that Cross often explored during this period (fig. 1). Always preoccupied with the depiction of nature and light, Cross executed numerous compositions of figures in a landscape; however, later in his career, the farmers working in the fields were gradually replaced by children playing, elegantly dressed or nude ladies picnicking or enjoying nature often in an otherworldly fashion (fig. 2).

In the present work, Cross approached his subject with a combination of realistic details and proto-abstract formations, heightening the visual intensity of the spectacle. His sharp focus on the shadows of the workers and the barrels in the foreground, juxtaposed with the pointillist formations of the hills along the coasts, create a picture of extraordinary depth and complexity. Painted under the same brilliant sunlight that nurtures the best vineyards of the Mediterranean, Vendanges displays a brilliant, shimmering palette dominated by contrast between the warm yellow and orange tones, and the cooler blues and purples. With its extraordinary treatment of perspective, leading the viewer's eye from the large objects in the foreground, past the workers in the centre, towards the seascape in the background, Vendanges is one of the most elaborately orchestrated and robust compositions of Cross’s œuvre.

 

When he moved from Paris to the South of France in 1891, the artist was interested in exploring the nuances of light and colour with a precision that the Impressionists had never achieved. In this picture, the modulation of colour, the flatness of the forms, and the purity with which Cross applied each dab of paint all characterise the Neo-Impressionist style. Neo-Impressionism, a movement that evolved from the Impressionists' emphasis on light and colour, was rooted in the colour theories of Eugène Michel Chevreul, a French chemist whose studies influenced the work of Cross and Georges Seurat. In the mid-1880s Seurat expounded upon Chevreul’s teachings in his writings and his numerous studies for Une dimanche après-midi à l’île de la Grande Jatte. His developments in this area influenced artists, including Cross, Theo van Rysselberghe and Paul Signac, to incorporate these pseudo-scientific principles into their own painting in the 1890s.  

 

The same year that Cross painted this work, he moved from Cabasson to Saint-Clair, near Saint-Tropez, where Paul Signac was living at the time. The two artists frequently met and discussed their work, influencing the development of each other’s styles. The precision and organisation of some of Signac’s compositions must have been in mind when Cross plotted out the compositional structure of this picture. In the exhibition catalogue of the Whitney Collection, John Rewald wrote: ‘Shapes are flattened and become integral decorative elements in the abstract design of Cross’ composition. The profile of the interconnected empty baskets at the front mimics the rising and falling outline of the hills. Cross considered this conflict, the tension between observed phenomena and the abstract components of color and shape he employed to represent them, an absorbing problem of artistic discretion. Cross discussed this in his extensive correspondence, and on one occasion he wrote to van Rysselberghe ‘Should that be the goal of art, I ask myself, those fragments of nature arranged in a rectangle with more or less perfect taste? And I return to the idea of chromatic harmonies completely invested and established, so to speak, without reference to nature as a point of departure’’ (J. Rewald, The John Hay Whitney Collection (exhibition catalogue), op. cit., 1983, p. 88).

According to Patrick Offenstadt, this work is one of Cross' first Divisionist paintings. Between 1891-93 he executed his finest Neo-Impressionist compositions, introducing a large number of figures in his landscapes. With the background prefiguring the celebrated Les Iles d'or (I. Compin, op. cit., no. 36), the present work is one of the masterpieces of Divisionism.

 

Fig. 1, Henri Edmond Cross, La Ferme, matin, 1893, oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nancy
Fig. 2, Henri Edmond Cross, L'Air du soir, 1894, oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris