Louis Anquetin
Through Toulouse-Lautrec, Anquetin participates in the Art Indépendant in Antwerp and, in 1889, on the occasion of the Universal Exhibition in Paris, exhibited together with Emile Bernard and other painters of the group Impressionist and Synthesist, at the Café Volpini, set up for the occasion on the ground floor of the Palais des Beaux Arts. Toulouse-Lautrec, who travels extensively with Anquetin to the Netherlands and Belgium, says of him: "Besides Manet, no other painter has been endowed with such qualities!"
In 1872 his parents enroll him at the famous Corneille High School in Rouen, but his career as an artist begins only after his military service, when he moves to Paris to attend the Atelier Léon Bonnat. Here he meets Toulouse-Lautrec and in 1883, because of the closure of the Atelier Bonnat, he moves to the Atelier of Fernand Cormon in Montmartre, where they don't teach academic painting, but everyone could freely express himself. During the first two years of school at Cormon he paints in a realistic style, close to Millet, and then moves to a Romanticism animated by great vigor.
In 1884 Emile Bernard enters the Cormon atelier and the two soon become great friends. The following year Anquetin, tired of the austere style adopted up to that moment, then he decides to meet Monet, of whom he is a great admirer. He joins him at Vetheuil’s residence and asks for advice. Soon Anquetin understands that the spontaneity of impressionist painting is not for him and continues his studies and research alone. In 1886, after seeing Seurat’s works at the Salon, he begins practicing pointillism with his friend Emile Bernard, but in 1887, after meeting Signac, the two decide to abandon this technique. The exhibition of Japanese prints, organized at the Cabaret "Le Tambourin" in 1887 by Van Gogh, has a huge impact on Anquetin and Bernard and will be at the origin of the technique of "Cloisonnisme". In this period Bernard, Anquetin, Loutrec and Van Gogh exhibit together with the "Grand Bouillon", at 43, avenue de Clichy, under the title of "Painters of the small boulevard".
Through Toulouse-Lautrec, Anquetin participates in the Art Indépendant in Antwerp and, in 1889, on the occasion of the Universal Exhibition in Paris, exhibited together with Emile Bernard and other painters of the group Impressionist and Synthesist, at the Café Volpini, set up for the occasion on the ground floor of the Palais des Beaux Arts.
Toulouse-Lautrec, who travels extensively with Anquetin to the Netherlands and Belgium, says of him: "Besides Manet, no other painter has been endowed with such qualities!"
Anquetin’s unstable and restless character soon leads him to very different and opposite artistic research. Detached from the meditated painting of Symbolism, he begins to paint worldly themes, preferring portraits in which he has already inserted decorative arabesques. The contour « cloisonniste turns into a subtle and delicate black line that gives elegance and nobility to his portraits.
Between 1891 and 1894 finally, he arrives at a final pictorial experimentation. His research on oil painting and the rendering of the volume leads him to a style, close to the taste of Manet, Daumier and Courbet, to which he gives an entirely personal strength.
Main museums:
Amsterdam, Rijskmuseum, Olanda
Albi, Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Francia
La Rochelle, Francia
Parigi, Musée d’Art Moderne, Francia
Londra, Tate Gallery, National Gallery, Gran Bretagna
San Pietroburgo, Ermitage Museum, Russia
San Francisco, Fine Arts Museum, Stati Uniti
Bibliography:
B. Thomson, The Post-Impressionists, Oxford, Phaidon, 1983; G. Schurr, P. Cabanne, Dictionnaire des Petits Maitres de la peinture, 1820-1920, Paris, Les editions de l’amateur, 1996; Catalogue sommaire illustré des peintures, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, Ed. Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1990; Anquetin, La passion d’etre peintre, Paris, Galerie Brame & Lorenceau, 1991
