Lagny, le pont de fer sur la Marne

Painted in 1889, Lagny, le pont de fer sur la Marne is a extraordinary display of Maximilian Luce's deep involvement and experimentation with Neo-Impressionism, in a dazzling display of colour and light. Evident in the composition is the influence of Georges Seurat on Luce's œuvre. Luce had first encountered Seurat's painting technique and theories of colour in the mid-1880s, and had subsequently begun to experiment with the same distinctive brushstrokes and radical colour palette. Both artists used this style to paint scenes of modern life, depicting both bourgeois and working-class figures, rural landscapes and, as in the case of the present work, urban scenes. Following in the footsteps of Monet and his fellow Impressionists, Luce sought to depict progress through the motif of the cast-iron bridge. The Impressionists interpreted these bridges as a signifier of modernity and progress: a symbol of national revival and industrialisation in the wake of France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War; a new feature in the changing landscape. The bridge that lends its name to the title of the present work connected the two communes of Lagny and Thorigny, which sit on opposite banks of the Marne some seventeen miles east of Paris. Built in 1859 to replace a damaged pre-existing bridge, the pont de fer would become a key point of strategic infrastructure for the region. For this very reason, however, the bridge was dramatically torn down in 1870, 1914, and again in 1940, during the Franco-Prussian War and the two World Wars, to halt various German armies. Eventually, in 1948, the cast-iron bridge would be replaced by a concrete one. Luce began to paint studies for this final work as early as the previous year, as can be seen in works such as La Marne et le Pont de Fer à Lagny, painted in 1888.

The most immediately recognisable and, arguably, famous depictions of bridges are those of the newly rebuilt railway bridge at Argenteuil on the Seine that Monet painted in 1873 and 1874. Painted some fifteen years later, however, the present work shows how Luce has assimilated and mastered the innovative Pointillist practice. Pointillism was founded on the theory that, by applying minute and precise brushstrokes of pure contrasting pigments next to each other directly onto the canvas, rather than mixing them on the artist's palette, they would still appear as mixed hues to the viewer. As a result, the painter could create exceptionally radiant effects of light. Elaborating on this, Robert L. Herbert, a pioneering scholar of Impressionism, writes: ‘Suddenly, the new Impressionists proclaimed that intense shimmering light need not spring from this hedonism of the retina. On the contrary, they insisted, the vibration of colored light must come from the patient and systematic application of nature’s immutable laws. With Seurat’s monumental Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grande Jatte as standard bearer, these artists exhibited works in bright colors laid down in tiny and systematic dabs of paint. Their paintings breathed a spirit of clear order, firm decision, scientific logic, and a startling definiteness of structure that constituted an open challenge to the instinctive art of the Impressionists of the previous decade. The most conspicuous act of defiance was their mechanical brushwork, which deliberately suppressed the personality of the artist and so flouted the individualism dear to the Impressionists’ (R. Herbert, Neo-Impressionism, Princeton, 1968, p. 15). These ground-breaking notions are exceptionally showcased in the present work, a true masterclass of restrained virtuosity. Here, the bold colour scheme and carefully studied palette reveal the extreme care that the artist took in the conception and execution of this painting. With Lagny, le pont de fer sur la Marne, Luce produced one of his most ambitious depictions of the new modern world, which his also a testament to his masterful ability as a painter.