Pierre Dumont "La Cathedrale de Rouen"

The city of Rouen, located in the northwest of Paris, was, until more than 5000 buildings were destroyed in World War 2, famous as a Gothic town and city of museums. Gothic churches and picturesque streets stimulated artists to put brush to canvas.

In this beautiful town, a succession of landscape painters worked between 1895 and 1940, seeing the cathedral and the beautiful valley of the River Seine through impressionist eyes. This group was called the Ecole de Rouen, and was an offshoot of the Impressionists. Its members were born in Normandy, generally in Rouen itself. They spent most of their lives in the region, painting the attractive local landscapes.

Pierre Dumont was one such artist. Although born into the Rouen bourgeoisie, he took up his study of art at La Ruche, a rendezvous for poor Paris painters, as his parents did not understand his art and refused to support him. He soon ran out of funds, and returned to his home town to join the Ecole de Rouen.

Although Dumont's paintings show something of this group's influence, much of his work is actually closer to the movement of Fauvism. The strong contrast of light and shade that we see in this painting, with black handled in a bold, intense manner, is characteristic of his style.

In 1909, Dumont held his first personal exhibition at a Rouen gallery. In the same year, he formed the group of XXX, forerunner of the Society of Contemporary Norman Painters, and came into contact with avant-garde artists Jacques Villon and Marcel Duchamp, as well as various poets and writers. All this brought him even closer to Fauvism and Cubism.

In 1912, with the assistance from Apollinaire, Dumont published a magazine called La Section d'Or in Paris in cooperation with such artists Later, he exhibited at the Salon des Independants and Salon d'Automne. In 1927, he began to suffer from mental derangement and this eventually led to his death in Rouen in 1936. tists, an influence that appears in Gainsborough's treatment of both trees and human figures.

Click picture for larger view.(75.4KB)

Pierre Dumont
(1884-1936)
La Cathedrale de Rouen

Oil on canvas
65×81cm