Armand Guillaumin (1841-1927) Le Roche de L'Echo, Creuse 1895 Oil on canvas 73 x 92 cm signed 'Guillaumin' lower right

Provenance: Private Collection Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd, London Christie's, Sydney, 3 October 1973, lot 454, illustrated Private Collection, Sydney

Exhibited: Australian Historical and Contemporary Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture.

Literature: Edouard des Couneres, Armand Guillaumin, Paris 1924, p.61 Georges Serret et Dominique Fabiani, Armand Guillaumin: Catalogue Raisonne de l'oeuvre peint, 1971, no 346.

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Armand Guillaumin enrolled at the Académie Suisse in Paris in 1861, where he met Cézanne and Pissarro. Their influences are clear, especially in his early works, which act as a basis from which Guillaumin developed his own mature style of post-impressionist landscape painting, of which Le Roche de L'Echo, Creuse, 1895, is a clear example. A work painted en plein air, Guillaumin has employed thick individual brushstrokes to boldly depict the landscape set out before him. The bright dabs of colour are skillfully deployed with equal attention throughout the composition to create the impression of autumn sunlight, and demonstrate a passion for colour apparent in all his works of this period. The artist has incorporated perspectives typically adopted by his Impressionist peers: the landscape is opened up to the viewer by a winding path through the trees and alongside the river bank, not dissimilar to Monet’s many views of the banks of the Seine. Indeed, in 1880, Zola commented in his article, ‘Naturalism at the Salon’, that:

“Mr Pissarro, Sisley, Guillaumin went in the footsteps of Mr. Claude Monet...and they endeavoured painting pieces of nature around Paris under real sunlight, without giving up in front of the most unforeseen effects of colouring."

Le Roche de L'Echo, Creuse typifies Guillaumin’s commitment to his artistic beliefs which he faithfully continued throughout his long career. Dying in 1927, he was the last survivor of the Impressionist group, of whom he was one of the most faithful members.

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