| Another painter worthy of honor disappeared, septuagenarian, two years ago, Pierre Girieud. The retrospective exhibition dedicated to him at Galerie André Maurice fairly faithfully represents the diversity of his work and the high qualities that distinguish it almost entirely. He did not know the big merchant coast; his legitimate personal pride was consoled by considering by what devices the big auctions that a certain portion of painting gets today.
Provençal born with a keen sense of beauty, style was natural to him. The Alpilles, closely related by the nobility of their forms, to the Greek hills, often make the themes of his landscapes; in several, it is no surprise to see it sometimes radiate with its very pure grace the Acropolis of Athens. In his figures, even elegant grandeur. His large compositions, which consist mainly, we believe, in the murals with which he adorned the Faculty of Letters of Poitiers, bear the imprint of such a spirit. His severe design, if it does not always have the desirable ease, never lacks an ancient dignity. There was Poussin's soul in Pierre Girieud's.
It is deliberately, it seems, that he usually limited his palette to sober tones; they have been accused of it.
In his paintings of flowers, however, he allowed himself a harmonious radiance, proof that the splendor of the color was accessible to him. Did he give other portraits than the vigorous and learned painting which reproduces his own face? Certainly, this is a very beautiful thing.
Pierre Girieud will have been, in our days, one of the rare maintainers of the intellectual part and poetry in painting: Muta Poesis dicitur Pictura, the adage inscribed at the head of the famous De Arte graphica by Du Fresnoy is a dogma that One never flouts with impunity; it will resume when common sense returns. |