Jacques-Émile Blanche
Parigi, 1861 - Offranville, Francia, 1942
The quality of the painting, the precious greys and the silver lights make Jacques-Emile Blanche an artist closer to Manet, admired much more, than the Impressionists; however, his works "en plein air" with brushstrokes in bright colors, do not hide a certain kinship with the latter.
Most of his life is tied to Normandy. On the beaches of Dieppe and Puys he plays with the sons of Lord Salisbury, with the daughters of Alexandre Dumas, Charles Gounod and the academic John Lemoinne (whose daughter he married in 1895). After the war of 1870, his parents rent an apartment in Dieppe, in the legendary Maison Briffard, and it is here that Jacques-Emile Blanche takes his first painting lessons from a local artist named Mélicourt. Brought to art in general, he is still undecided on the path to take. During the "dîners des philosophes" (dinners of philosophers) that his parents organize every Saturday night, he knows some celebrities of the time. George Sand, Michelet, Renan, who direct him towards literary activity, Berlioz, Bizet, Fauré, towards music, but in the end, it is the art of painting that prevails.
In Dieppe he meets the painter Sickert who becomes one of his best friends and leads him to appreciate the art of portrait.
He often accompanies his mother to Berthe Morisot and spends hours and hours watching her paint. Thanks to Edmond Maître he meets Fantin-Latour who corrected his first attempts at painting. He began collecting works by Monet and Cézanne. He is about thirteen years old when he has the opportunity to visit the Atelier of Manet where he is completely subjugated by the marines. He then meets Degas and Renoir, who always praises him for his compositional and chromatic qualities and suggests to give him advice in Paris. The family wealth allows Blanche to paint without the hassle of sales; He can freely choose his models and the portrait on commission represents only a small part of the production.
In 1879 Berthe Morisot invites him to participate to the exhibitions of the Impressionist group, but Blanche, just eighteen, refuses out of modesty and respect for his masters.
The same year he builds, at the foot of the cliff of Dieppe, a wooden atelier where his friends’ writers, musicians, painters, politicians meet. He is usually surrounded by exceptional personalities, also thanks to his grandfather and father, both doctors-psychiatrists famous for having treated many well-known personalities in the nineteenth century, from Gérard de Nerval to the Countess of Castiglione to Guy de Maupassant.
Among his most famous friends, we can mention Henri Bergson, Stéphane Mallarmé, André Gide, Jean Cocteau, Igor Stravinsky, Paul Valery, Marcel Proust, George Moore, Max Jacob, Claude Debussy, Maurice Maeterlinck.
For a long time, the artist uses a sober palette, based on black, ochre, and brown. The paintings exhibited at the Salon of 1888 (Louis Metman) and 1890 (Enfant couché or Le réveil de la petite princesse) are confirmation of this. Thanks to the advice of his friend Whistler, he acquires sophistication and harmony in colors that announce further research towards greater transparency and dilution of colors.
Since its foundation in 1890, it has exhibited regularly at the Salon de la Societé Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris.
He joins the celebrity with some portraits: Paul Adam, Charles Cottet, The painter Thaulow and his family, The Vielé-Griffin Family.
Marrying the daughter of the English John Lemoinne, leader of the "Journal des Débats", he manages to get in touch with several French and English personalities who often commission him portraits.
He frequently exhibits at the National Gallery in London. His works often depict genre scenes, representations of fashionable places, such as Brighton or Dieppe Beach, and horse racing.
In 1900 he succeeds in winning the gold medal at the Universal Exhibition in Paris. He is also the author of autobiographical and essais novels: Quaderni d'artista, Da David a Degas, Da Gauguin alla Revue négre, Manet.
The quality of the painting, the precious greys and the silver lights make Jacques-Emile Blanche an artist closer to Manet, admired much more, than the Impressionists; however, his works "en plein air" with brushstrokes in bright colors, do not hide a certain kinship with the latter.
From 1902 to 1939 he lives in Offranville and in this small village near Dieppe, he writes: "If by chance I did not want to be born in Dieppe, Saint-Jacques became my parish, his nave an oratory propitious to my meditations... All the most decisive accidents of my career surprised me at Dieppe".
Around 1910, visiting the Louvre, he meets his old friend Louis Anquetin and the sight of his works in "grisaille" makes him reflect on the use of soft and deep shadows, which from this moment on, he will adopt in his paintings.
Between 1915 and 1918 he becomes very interested in Russian Ballets; This revelation drags him into a new taste for color, coming to touch up some old-fashioned works that no longer satisfy him.
In 1923 he participated in the II Roman Biennale with the works La famiglia by René Ménard and Gruppo di Musicisti.
In the years 1925-30 he reaches the peak of the career; Every image he thinks of , he immediately finds, through a few touches of brush, the related pictorial correspondence. He’s so adept at fixing the subjects in his mind that he doesn’t need a real presence. For example, the portrait of the Countess of Castiglione, met in 1893, was painted in 1925, only based on a memory carved into his mind.
The year after his death, the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris dedicates a large commemorative exhibition to him.
In 1997, the Museum of Fine Arts in Rouen organizes an anthological exhibition in his honor that has continued in Italy, at Palazzo Martinengo (Brescia) the following year.
In 2018 the Museum of Fine Arts of Libourne, (France), in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts of Rouen organizes in the Chapelle du Carmel, the retrospective entitled Le peintre aux visages, exhibition dedicated to the portraits of the artist.
Main Museums:
Barcellona, Museu de Arte Moderna
Bruxelles, Musée Royaux
Dieppe, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Digione
Florida, Museum of fine Arts
Grenoble, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Lione, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Londra: The Tate Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Government Art Collection, The Garrick Club
Nizza, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Offranville, Musée Jacques Emile Blanche
Parigi: Musée Rodin, Musée de la musique, Musée du Petit Palais, Musée de la vie Romantique, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Musée Bibliothèque de l'Opéra, Musée du Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Musée Carnavalet, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville
Reims, Musée des Beaux Arts
Rouen
San Pietroburgo, Ermitage
Strasburgo, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Tours, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Bibliography:
Seconda Biennale romana, Mostra internazionale di belle arti Roma, MCMXXIII, Roma, Casa Editrice d’Arte Enzo Pinci, 1923; F. Lespinasse, La Normandie vue par les peintres, Losanna, Edita, 1988 ; Jacques-Emile Blache, peintre (1861-1942), Parigi, Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1997 ; Dictionnaire de Peintres à Montmartre, Parigi, Editions André Roussard, 1999; J. S. Klein, La Normandie, berceau de l’Impressionnisme, 1820-1900, Rennes, Editions Ouest-France, 1999; Au temps de Marcel Proust, La collection François-Gérarl Selingmann au musée Carnavalet, Paris Musées, 2001; M. Wolpert & J. Winter, Modern Figurative Paintings, The Paris Connection, Atglen, A Schiffer Book, 2004.
In Dieppe he meets the painter Sickert who becomes one of his best friends and leads him to appreciate the art of portrait.
He often accompanies his mother to Berthe Morisot and spends hours and hours watching her paint. Thanks to Edmond Maître he meets Fantin-Latour who corrected his first attempts at painting. He began collecting works by Monet and Cézanne. He is about thirteen years old when he has the opportunity to visit the Atelier of Manet where he is completely subjugated by the marines. He then meets Degas and Renoir, who always praises him for his compositional and chromatic qualities and suggests to give him advice in Paris. The family wealth allows Blanche to paint without the hassle of sales; He can freely choose his models and the portrait on commission represents only a small part of the production.
In 1879 Berthe Morisot invites him to participate to the exhibitions of the Impressionist group, but Blanche, just eighteen, refuses out of modesty and respect for his masters.
The same year he builds, at the foot of the cliff of Dieppe, a wooden atelier where his friends’ writers, musicians, painters, politicians meet. He is usually surrounded by exceptional personalities, also thanks to his grandfather and father, both doctors-psychiatrists famous for having treated many well-known personalities in the nineteenth century, from Gérard de Nerval to the Countess of Castiglione to Guy de Maupassant.
Among his most famous friends, we can mention Henri Bergson, Stéphane Mallarmé, André Gide, Jean Cocteau, Igor Stravinsky, Paul Valery, Marcel Proust, George Moore, Max Jacob, Claude Debussy, Maurice Maeterlinck.
For a long time, the artist uses a sober palette, based on black, ochre, and brown. The paintings exhibited at the Salon of 1888 (Louis Metman) and 1890 (Enfant couché or Le réveil de la petite princesse) are confirmation of this. Thanks to the advice of his friend Whistler, he acquires sophistication and harmony in colors that announce further research towards greater transparency and dilution of colors.
Since its foundation in 1890, it has exhibited regularly at the Salon de la Societé Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris.
He joins the celebrity with some portraits: Paul Adam, Charles Cottet, The painter Thaulow and his family, The Vielé-Griffin Family.
Marrying the daughter of the English John Lemoinne, leader of the "Journal des Débats", he manages to get in touch with several French and English personalities who often commission him portraits.
He frequently exhibits at the National Gallery in London. His works often depict genre scenes, representations of fashionable places, such as Brighton or Dieppe Beach, and horse racing.
In 1900 he succeeds in winning the gold medal at the Universal Exhibition in Paris. He is also the author of autobiographical and essais novels: Quaderni d'artista, Da David a Degas, Da Gauguin alla Revue négre, Manet.
The quality of the painting, the precious greys and the silver lights make Jacques-Emile Blanche an artist closer to Manet, admired much more, than the Impressionists; however, his works "en plein air" with brushstrokes in bright colors, do not hide a certain kinship with the latter.
From 1902 to 1939 he lives in Offranville and in this small village near Dieppe, he writes: "If by chance I did not want to be born in Dieppe, Saint-Jacques became my parish, his nave an oratory propitious to my meditations... All the most decisive accidents of my career surprised me at Dieppe".
Around 1910, visiting the Louvre, he meets his old friend Louis Anquetin and the sight of his works in "grisaille" makes him reflect on the use of soft and deep shadows, which from this moment on, he will adopt in his paintings.
Between 1915 and 1918 he becomes very interested in Russian Ballets; This revelation drags him into a new taste for color, coming to touch up some old-fashioned works that no longer satisfy him.
In 1923 he participated in the II Roman Biennale with the works La famiglia by René Ménard and Gruppo di Musicisti.
In the years 1925-30 he reaches the peak of the career; Every image he thinks of , he immediately finds, through a few touches of brush, the related pictorial correspondence. He’s so adept at fixing the subjects in his mind that he doesn’t need a real presence. For example, the portrait of the Countess of Castiglione, met in 1893, was painted in 1925, only based on a memory carved into his mind.
The year after his death, the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris dedicates a large commemorative exhibition to him.
In 1997, the Museum of Fine Arts in Rouen organizes an anthological exhibition in his honor that has continued in Italy, at Palazzo Martinengo (Brescia) the following year.
In 2018 the Museum of Fine Arts of Libourne, (France), in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts of Rouen organizes in the Chapelle du Carmel, the retrospective entitled Le peintre aux visages, exhibition dedicated to the portraits of the artist.
Main Museums:
Barcellona, Museu de Arte Moderna
Bruxelles, Musée Royaux
Dieppe, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Digione
Florida, Museum of fine Arts
Grenoble, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Lione, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Londra: The Tate Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Government Art Collection, The Garrick Club
Nizza, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Offranville, Musée Jacques Emile Blanche
Parigi: Musée Rodin, Musée de la musique, Musée du Petit Palais, Musée de la vie Romantique, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Musée Bibliothèque de l'Opéra, Musée du Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Musée Carnavalet, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville
Reims, Musée des Beaux Arts
Rouen
San Pietroburgo, Ermitage
Strasburgo, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Tours, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Bibliography:
Seconda Biennale romana, Mostra internazionale di belle arti Roma, MCMXXIII, Roma, Casa Editrice d’Arte Enzo Pinci, 1923; F. Lespinasse, La Normandie vue par les peintres, Losanna, Edita, 1988 ; Jacques-Emile Blache, peintre (1861-1942), Parigi, Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1997 ; Dictionnaire de Peintres à Montmartre, Parigi, Editions André Roussard, 1999; J. S. Klein, La Normandie, berceau de l’Impressionnisme, 1820-1900, Rennes, Editions Ouest-France, 1999; Au temps de Marcel Proust, La collection François-Gérarl Selingmann au musée Carnavalet, Paris Musées, 2001; M. Wolpert & J. Winter, Modern Figurative Paintings, The Paris Connection, Atglen, A Schiffer Book, 2004.
