| Which of the innumerable exhibitions opened over the past eight or so should be remembered? Pierre Girieud first, at Melle Weill's (46 rue Lafitte), Girieud, like Dufrénoy, like Laprade, belongs to this generation of artists who are over forty, who succeed, in the affectionate esteem of connoisseurs, to the Roussel generation , Bonnard, Vuillard, Matisse. It started some twenty years ago at Les Indépendants, and I remember his tribute to Gauguin, who once caused a sensation at the Serres de la Ville barracks. From these distant times, Pierre Girieud, reacting against the immediate notation of the ephemeral, that is to say against the impressionist aesthetic, attested to his desire for composition and cadence; likewise he repudiated the virulence of wild beasts; no one was more penetrated by the teaching of the Italians before the Renaissance, then of Nicolas Poussin and Camille Corot; his reserved, dignified and proud attitude, his distance from the coteries, his horror of theoretical nonsense, made him isolated, which did not know the brilliant successes without tomorrow; he worked slowly, waiting for his hour without haste or fever.
Of a deep culture, contrasting with the aggressive ignorance of the primary, he fed on the masters of the museum, poets, sacred and profane history, legend; his friends, those who first understood it, were Charles Morice and especially Joachim Gasquet; we saw from him canvases in which the spirit of the primitive Umbrian and Sienese revived; like Denis, like Flandrin and Laprade, he lived in Italy, and benefited from the lesson that the residents of the Villa Medicis so rarely felt; I remember his Dance of the Daughters of Israel for the Promised Land, by Ruth and Booz, a personal interpretation of the Three Graces Piccolomini, forerunners of these noble lithographs of the Princesses of the Fable and the Bible, where myths and legends, served by the most learned and free trade of engraver, were inscribed in forms and volumes of a perfect balance. But, although he sometimes had too keen a taste for the preconceived style, he never neglected to rely on a fervent observation of reality and nature, witness his admirable Tuscan landscapes, his patient and truthful studies of domes and cloisters of San Giminiano. Here it is today, mastered, and its thirty three canvases from the B. Weill gallery are the flowering of a fertile and opulent maturity. Here are Provençal landscapes of a skillful and free technique, of a muscular drawing at the same time and flexible, rich and sober; the skies, the feudal ruins, the red roofs of the small houses of Moustiers and Tourves, the churches, the shady valleys, the hills, the foliage of the silver olive tree harmonize in discreet harmony, in fair relationship; the tone is delicate, fullness assured. Pierre Girieud, without having sought it, through the slow and logical development of a self-confident plastic thought, came to the forefront; he is one of those who will have contributed to this classic revival dreamed by our Gasquet. In addition to its sites and nudes, sound and sculptural volume, Girieud shows models of two compositions he intended for the Court of Trades of the International Exhibition and including MM. Bonnier and Plumet did not perceive beauty; we find there the ardent lyricism and the consummate science of the famous Pradines frescoes, where the artist worked alongside Dufrénoy and Alfred Lombard, and which mark a date in the history of contemporary decorative painting.
Once again, we regret that the state did not use the effect of adorning its monuments, the best artists of the time. And let us note to our dear and eminent Gustave Geffroy that Pierre Girieud who would give him splendid tapestry cartons |