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Lot Essay
Georges de Feure was born in Paris, but had left with his family at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 to live in the Netherlands. When he retuned to Paris in 1889, settling in Montmartre, he soon began working as an artist and illustrator. De Feure quickly allied himself with the Symbolist movement, taking part in the Exposition des Peintres Impressionistes et Symbolistes at the Galerie Le Barc de Boutteville.
Philippe Julian aptly described Georges de Feure as ‘the most art nouveau of all the Symbolists’ (P. Julien, The Symbolists, London, 1973, p.231). De Feure embarked on an association with the Art Nouveau pioneer Siegfried Bing that was to establish his reputation. He decorated the facade and designed two suites of furniture for Bing’s Pavillon de l’Art Nouveau at the great Exposition Universelle of 1900, a project that earned extravagant praise from critics.
The major exhibition of Georges de Feure’s work, held in Siegfried Bing’s Galerie de l’Art Nouveau in Paris (1903), included 155 paintings, watercolours and prints. Among the revelations of this exhibition, for critics and collectors alike, were a group of over fifty landscape paintings and drawings, a previously little-known aspect of the artist’s oeuvre. These works dominated the exhibition and drew the attention of several writers. From this time onward, the artist chose to exhibit landscapes almost exclusively.
This gouache landscape is likely to date from the first decade of the 20th century, when the artist produced a number of small paintings and gouaches of towns and villages that are reminiscent of scenes in the Low Countries. As the De Feure scholar Ian Millman has noted of the artist, ‘Whether real or imaginary, the canals, windmills and estuaries of Flanders were an inexhaustible source of inspiration for him… In his Flemish landscapes, De Feure has masterfully captured the light of the North and the peaceful atmosphere of its canals and small towns.’ (I. Millman, Georges de Feure 1868-1943, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam, 1993-1994., pp.191 and 238).
Ian Millman has suggested that these gouaches may, as a group, have been intended to represent a sort of panorama of landscapes in different seasons. As he further notes, ‘De Feure developed a highly personal, original approach to the [landscape] genre that may best be described as Art Nouveau landscape painting. It distanced itself from Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism on one hand and the reactions against these movements by Gauguin and the Pont-Aven Group and the Nabis on the other, yet the common factor underlying all these disparate currents was the impact of Japanese art.’ (Millman, op.cit., 1993-1994, p.27)
Philippe Julian aptly described Georges de Feure as ‘the most art nouveau of all the Symbolists’ (P. Julien, The Symbolists, London, 1973, p.231). De Feure embarked on an association with the Art Nouveau pioneer Siegfried Bing that was to establish his reputation. He decorated the facade and designed two suites of furniture for Bing’s Pavillon de l’Art Nouveau at the great Exposition Universelle of 1900, a project that earned extravagant praise from critics.
The major exhibition of Georges de Feure’s work, held in Siegfried Bing’s Galerie de l’Art Nouveau in Paris (1903), included 155 paintings, watercolours and prints. Among the revelations of this exhibition, for critics and collectors alike, were a group of over fifty landscape paintings and drawings, a previously little-known aspect of the artist’s oeuvre. These works dominated the exhibition and drew the attention of several writers. From this time onward, the artist chose to exhibit landscapes almost exclusively.
This gouache landscape is likely to date from the first decade of the 20th century, when the artist produced a number of small paintings and gouaches of towns and villages that are reminiscent of scenes in the Low Countries. As the De Feure scholar Ian Millman has noted of the artist, ‘Whether real or imaginary, the canals, windmills and estuaries of Flanders were an inexhaustible source of inspiration for him… In his Flemish landscapes, De Feure has masterfully captured the light of the North and the peaceful atmosphere of its canals and small towns.’ (I. Millman, Georges de Feure 1868-1943, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam, 1993-1994., pp.191 and 238).
Ian Millman has suggested that these gouaches may, as a group, have been intended to represent a sort of panorama of landscapes in different seasons. As he further notes, ‘De Feure developed a highly personal, original approach to the [landscape] genre that may best be described as Art Nouveau landscape painting. It distanced itself from Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism on one hand and the reactions against these movements by Gauguin and the Pont-Aven Group and the Nabis on the other, yet the common factor underlying all these disparate currents was the impact of Japanese art.’ (Millman, op.cit., 1993-1994, p.27)