| While Flandrin, Marquet, Dufrenoy, Puy, Laprade, Manguin, Friesz became famous - and Matisse illustrates! - Pierre Girieud, their comrade, their equal will become isolated. We were not right for Girieud, and here I am doing my criticism. Except Gasquet and Charles Morice, who had understood this artist, no one went to seek him in his retirement. We were too seduced by the delights of Bonnard, and the fireworks of the wild animals surprised us. Near them, but in silence, a cultivated, meditative being, in love with the Sienese and Gauguin, aimed not at the effect, but at the rate, preferred the ordered composition to the piece of bravery. It was Girieud.
He intended to restore to the imagination his recognized rights, ignored the stain and the pochade, dreamed of harmonious frescoes (and with Dufrénoy and Lombard, could realize this dream to the walls of a charming patron, Mr. Douglas Fitch, in this chapel of Pradines whose decoration counts in contemporary French art).
Pierre Girieud thus opened the way for these beautiful young people, the masters of tomorrow, who react against Impressionism while respecting it, Angel Zaraga, André Favory, Lhote, Gabriel Fournier, Corneau; He remembered that Poussin and Corot populated their stylized landscapes with human deities. Girieud was therefore one of the precursors of the rebirth to which we will attend.
Here is this plastic poet gives us today to contemplate a series of twelve lithographs "Princesses of the Fable and the Bible", where the elevation of thought, the nobility of feeling are enhanced by the quality of a pure drawing , strong and serious. Legends, myths and symbols are transcribed in shapes and volumes of perfect balance. The engraver technique is first-rate: the contrasts of the reserves with the soft blacks and the modulated passages of the half-tones will delight the connoisseur. We can judge fully, according to these prints, the value of the painter. Will the ornate and sagacious spirit of Pierre Girieud, his science of colorist and builder finally be appreciated and put in their rank? The state has palaces to decorate, tapestry cards to distribute. But so much mediocre has, so far, seized orders! When will our democracy make way for the artist? |