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Lot Essay
A true Parisian, born and brought-up on the Left Bank, Maximilien Luce favoured urban subject matter and the daily lives of the petit peuple, unlike his fellow Post-Impressionists. Paris, rue animée le soir dates from 1896, a period when the theme of Parisian street scenes preoccupied the artist. At the beginning of 1895 Luce wrote to Henry Cross: 'I have started a study, or rather a series of street scenes; I am doing it from Besnard's, Rue des Abbesses, and it is devilishly hard. I want to render that movement of the crowd, which is fearfully difficult' (D. Bazetoux, op. cit., p. 84). In the present painting, a gloriously luminous rendering of a Parisian street scene at night, Luce clearly overcame any such difficulties. Rather than choosing to depict a generalized mass, Luce describes in detail the passersby, still and in motion, a nurse in her uniform crossing the street, a young boy wheeling a barrow, parents out with their child and friends greeting each other under a street light. The iridescent hues of greens and blues in the dusky sky contrast with the warm yellow and orange tones glowing from the shop-fronts and gas street lights, creating a harmonious composition.
Luce was one of the earliest practitioners of the pointillist technique, adopting it as early as 1885. Two years later, Camille Pissarro introduced him to Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, following his submission of three pointillist paintings to the third exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants, which earned him critical acclaim. Unlike his contemporaries, however, Luce felt less bound to adhere strictly to the theoretical dicta of optical fusion, preferring a more instinctive approach to his landscapes, cityscapes and portraits, as borne out by the present painting, which is suffused with an emotional resonance, a sense of the artist's own identification with his subject matter.
The provenance of the present painting is particularly distinguished, as it was owned during the artist's lifetime by Harry Graf Kessler, the renowned Anglo-German aristocrat. Kessler was born of the wealthy Hamburg banker, Adolf Wilhelm Kessler, and the Anglo-Irish Alice Baroness Blosse-Lynch. An early education in Paris and England preceded an active career in the arts, as patron and champion of the European Modernist movement. In 1906, his portrait was painted by Edvard Munch (Nationalgalerie, Berlin), and W.H. Auden considered him the most cosmopolitan man that ever lived. He became director of the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Weimar and vice-president of the German Artists League. His liberal attitude towards Modern Art and his pacifist stance drew him into disrepute under the Nazi regime and he was forced to flee the country, moving from Paris to Mallorca, and finally Lyon, where he died in 1937.
Luce was one of the earliest practitioners of the pointillist technique, adopting it as early as 1885. Two years later, Camille Pissarro introduced him to Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, following his submission of three pointillist paintings to the third exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants, which earned him critical acclaim. Unlike his contemporaries, however, Luce felt less bound to adhere strictly to the theoretical dicta of optical fusion, preferring a more instinctive approach to his landscapes, cityscapes and portraits, as borne out by the present painting, which is suffused with an emotional resonance, a sense of the artist's own identification with his subject matter.
The provenance of the present painting is particularly distinguished, as it was owned during the artist's lifetime by Harry Graf Kessler, the renowned Anglo-German aristocrat. Kessler was born of the wealthy Hamburg banker, Adolf Wilhelm Kessler, and the Anglo-Irish Alice Baroness Blosse-Lynch. An early education in Paris and England preceded an active career in the arts, as patron and champion of the European Modernist movement. In 1906, his portrait was painted by Edvard Munch (Nationalgalerie, Berlin), and W.H. Auden considered him the most cosmopolitan man that ever lived. He became director of the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Weimar and vice-president of the German Artists League. His liberal attitude towards Modern Art and his pacifist stance drew him into disrepute under the Nazi regime and he was forced to flee the country, moving from Paris to Mallorca, and finally Lyon, where he died in 1937.