| Even if we prefer that the bistros remain intended to quench people's thirst rather than show them pictures, we are forced to recognize that Tartane is doing very well in this hybrid role. It is true that the atmosphere created both by the friendliness of the owner and the old fireplace where real logs burn, contributes to giving this establishment an air that is no longer that of any bar.
Anyway, I made the discovery here of a painter who had his hour of notoriety in the first quarter of this century, being in particular in our city, vice-president of the Salon de Mai whose presidents of honor were Rodin and Renoir. Founder of the fresco school, he owes him the decoration of many churches. Finally, proof of the respect enjoyed by Pierre Girieud, he was hailed as a talented artist by Gustave Coquiot in his book devoted to cubists, futurists and pastists.
La Tartane therefore offers us a look at the work of this painter who died in 1948 in Nogent-sur-Marne and which we regret is a little forgotten today, because if we find in his way, at times, the very noticeable influence of Gauguin with this marked taste for the synthesis of shapes and colors (he was the author of a Homage to Gauguin in 1906), he was able to achieve a personal style especially in certain landscapes of Provence built in solid architectures whose refined colors evoke those of the great quattrocentric Italians and perhaps more particularly Uccelo and Piero di Cosimo.
Sometimes too - and his attachment to Gauguin explains it to us - he is not unlike the Nabis, with these subtleties of graphics and these nuances of tones frequent in Vuillard. A few tempera, a few aquatints and enhanced drawings nicely complete the exhibition and would be enough to prove to us, if necessary, that Girieud deserved better than the half-forgetfulness in which the test of time has plunged him. Until October 31. |