Printemps à Eguilles, circa 1907
Oil on canvas, signed lower left
72 x 92 cm
Provenance :
Private collection, France
Exhibition :
Alfred Lombard (1884-1973), exhibition at the Centre de la Vieille Charité, Marseille, 17 October - 28 November 1987, reproduced in catalogue no. 9, p.31.
Bibliography:
Giulia Pentcheff, Alfred Lombard, Editions Galerie Alexis Pentcheff, Marseille, 2019, reproduced as n°17 p.170.
Alfred Lombard is relatively unknown to the general public, as he was interested in mural painting, which he also practiced and theorized, and his production of easel paintings is very limited.
Yet he was one of the most outstanding painters in Provence at the beginning of the 20th century, and one of the region's most innovative artists.
This painting, executed around 1907, is proof of that. It is a veritable manifesto for the advent of a new style of painting. Everything in this painting declares both the painter's love for the landscape of his native Provence and his need to interpret it differently on canvas.
Technically, Lombard is proposing a small pictorial revolution, swept up by the Fauve wave that has swept through the Salon d'Automne, to which he has just been admitted.
The colors, of course, while still obvious to us today, are violent and crude, barely bearable for the spectator of the time, who also finds it difficult to grasp this composition, at once simplified in its forms and complex in its arrangement, to such an extent that the classical perception of space is lost.
Along with his friend Pierre Girieud, Lombard campaigned for the advent of Salons de peinture vivante in Marseille, which would finally enable young artists to show their work in the provinces.
A true cultural driving force in his city since 1907, he was at the origin of this project, which gained momentum in 1912 and 1913 with the incredible adventure of the Salons de Mai, which was unfortunately halted by the war.
With this audacious work, Lombard affirmed his vocation as an innovative painter.
To reach this point, he had to confront the commands of his parents and the conventions of his milieu.
In this artistic emancipation, he was able to count on his friends Joachim and Marie Gasquet, the poets who nurtured and encouraged his artistic soul at their Fontlaure estate in Eguilles, not far from the landscape that inspired this painting. It was in this countryside of aesthetes, in the admiration of the Provencal landscape and the works of Cézanne, nourished by poetic readings, that his profound artistic conviction was forged.