 |
Georges Rouault (Paris, 1871-1958) expressed the suffering of the world through his intensely dramatic and deeply spiritual work. He studied alongside Henri Matisse and Albert Marquet and showed work with them in the legendary exhibition of 1905 that gave rise to the name 'Fauvism'. Even so, he pursued a personal path in his work and remained aloof from the avant-garde movements. Yet despite this self-imposed isolation from the artistic trends of the first half of the 20th century, in the closing decades of his life Rouault was held in very high esteem by his contemporaries.
|
|
Rouault trained in the studio of Gustave Moreau. He began to paint Biblical scenes (Job, 1892) and landscapes (Paysage de nuit, 1897) that were acclaimed and awarded various prizes. In 1898, after a profound crisis brought on by the death of his teacher and spiritual guide, Rouault rejected the offers he received from official circles and instead embarked on an independent career, during which he turned to themes drawn from social reality, painting prostitutes (Odalisque, 1906), circus folk and figures from commedia dell'arte (Polichinelle, 1910), court scenes (L'accusé, 1907) and outcasts living in poor neighbourhoods.
Influenced by writers such as Léon Bloy, Joris-Karl Huysmans and Jacques Maritain, Rouault found in Christianity the sole possible route to intellectual recovery. In the outcasts, displaced and excluded (Hiver III, 1910), he saw an invocation to the suffering of Christ and the reality of the Gospels. Rouault's works from this period are imbued with the immense sadness and the profound piety that these figures.
|
|
After 1917 and throughout the entire period between the two World Wars, etching came to feature prominently in his work. Rouault produced numerous series of etchings but the most remarkable in quality and force is Miserere, a masterpiece of contemporary graphic art and a synthesis of his oeuvre. His father's death and the trauma of the horrors of the First World War drove him to create a monumental work in which the religious theme and the profane theme are interconnected: the first linked to the suffering of Christ, an emblem and symbol of the entire human tragedy; and the second to do with the vicissitudes of man's existence as he continues on his pilgrimage of suffering on Earth, with the tragic echo of war as a backdrop.
|
|
Rouault's paintings from this time onwards focus on the figure of Christ (Christ en croix, 1920), as he increasingly sought to take inspiration from religious themes, principally the Passion (Christ aux outrages, c. 1930). Even though he continued to work on some of his earlier themes, such as clowns (Le clown blessé, 1932) and judges (Juges, 1936), much of his output was of scenes from the Bible (Christ et pêcheurs, 1937) due to his profoundly spiritual vision.
|
|
Rouault began to abandon watercolour and gouache, turning increasingly to oils as his preferred medium. The caricaturesque realism of his early works gradually shifted towards a schematic approach to his forms, and he started to use a palette of thicker and richer colours. His subjects' faces lost their grotesque, desperate look, becoming more serene in expression (Songe creux, 1946). In his later period, he used a brighter range of colours, in which black was less often found (Sarah, 1956). His work from this period is more luminous and tranquil, as reflected above all in his scenes from the Bible.
|
|
|
back
