| (...) We could multiply the examples, by borrowing them from Manguin, who was rarely better inspired than in Femme à la grappe (1906), Camoin, Flandrin, which the Masaccio of 1909 affirms, by a feeling of fresco and by a studied "grandeur", the aspiration to style. This aspiration, so characteristic of French art, from the years immediately preceding the war, explains the return to nude studies and compositions that would be called heroic, if this term was not to be immediately corrected by the notion of a familiarity often full of charm and a very sensitive study. At least the accent of the observed, peculiar, endearing form, and even the innocence of a true feeling, distinguish skillfully established works, such as the beautiful Pastoral of Déziré (1906). There is more scope, but more heaviness also in the Provence of Girieud, once ignited by Van Gogh, (...) |