Henri le Sidaner

Galeries Georges Petit, Paris

(probablement) Paris, Musée Galliera, Rétrospective Henri Le Sidaner, 1948, no. 47
 

The canvas is not lined and slightly slacked. There is a 8cm.strecher mark running vertically in the centre of the composition with an associated waviness. There is a 2x2 mm. tear with an associated paintloss toward the centre of the right edge. There is an intermittent line of inpaintings running through the upper edge. There is a 1x2 cm. spot of retouching and some scaterred tiny dots of retouching in the lower right quadrant. There is a 1cm vertical dent in the upper left corner. Nevertheless, the work is in fairly good condition.
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indistinctly signed (lower right), oil on canvas. Painted in 1901.

Selon Yann Farinaux-Le Sidaner, La Terrasse, Soleil, Gerberoy est l'une des toute premières toiles que l'artiste ait peintes à Gerberoy. Ayant découvert  le village au mois de mars 1901, l'artiste est aussitôt séduit par le "doux asile" qu'il découvre dans "l'ancienne petite ville somnolente mais imprégnée du charme de son passé" (Henri Le-Sidaner, cité in Yann Farinaux-Le Sidaner, Le Sidaner, Milan, 1989, p. 14).

C'est dans les années 1890 que l'artiste affirme et développe son propre style, dans une veine symboliste. L'art de Le Sidaner est en effet empreint de cet esprit fin-de-siècle qui caractérise les œuvres de Maeterlinck, Verhaeren ou Lévy-Dhurmer. On retrouve ainsi, dans cette composition, les tonalités sourdes et mystérieuses qui  lui valent les éloges de Claude Roger-Marx en 1903; ce dernier "ne se souv[enant] pas que depuis Cazin ou Maeterlinck, peintre ou écrivain ait suggéré avec une acuité aussi intense la sensation de paix, du silence ou du mystère" (cité in Yann Farinaux-Le Sidaner, op. cit., p. 30).

According to Yann Farinaux-Le Sidaner, La Terrasse, Soleil, Gerberoy is one of the very first pictures the artist painted at Gerberoy.  After discovering the village in March 1901, the artist immediately fell in love with the "sweet haven"  that he had discovered in "the sleepy little old town infused with the charm of its history" (Henri Le-Sidaner, cited in Yann Farinaux-Le Sidaner, Le Sidaner, Milan, 1989, p. 14).

 

It was during the 1890s that the artist asserted and developed his own style in the vein  of the Symbolists.  In effect, the art of Le Sidaner is marked by the fin-de-siècle mood that characterised the work of Maeterlinck, Verhaeren and Lévy-Dhurmer.  In the present composition we find the muted, enigmatic tones that in 1903 earned the praise of Claude Roger-Marx, who declared that he "could not remember any painter or writer since Cazin or Maeterlinck who evokes with such intense poignancy the sensation of  peace, silence or mystery" (cited in Yann Farinaux-Le Sidaner, op. cit., p. 30).