Gustave Loiseau "La falaise a St. Jouint"

Gustave Loiseau was born on October 3, 1865, in Paris. After a year's military service, he took his father's advice and joined the family firm as a decorator. His parents expected him to take over the business, but the experience of his grandmother's death and his own typhoid led him to pursue his own interests and become a painter. He moved to Montmartre and began meeting artists.

In 1890, Loiseau visited Pont-Aven. Gauguin was absent, but exerted a vicarious influence on Loiseau through the other painters who were there.

In 1894, Durand-Ruel, a leading art dealer and champion of the Impressionists, began handling Loiseau's work. It was at around this time that Gauguin returned from his first trip to Tahiti, and in the five months before he set off again, Gauguin taught Loiseau directly at Pont-Aven.

In 1895, Loiseau moved to Moret-sur-Loing and started painting the rivers and hills there. Like Monet, he was fond of travel, and he painted landscapes in various parts of France, including the Normandy coast, Fecamp, Etretat, Saint Jouin, Le Havre, and Marseille. Between 1905 and 1910, he painted a series of landscapes in the neighborhood of Rouen. He returned to Paris in his later years, lived in an apartment in Quai d'Anjou and painted scenes from city life.

At first glance, his work closely resembles that of Monet. However, the latter depicted nature purely visually, emphasizing the effects of lighting, while Loisearu's looked at nature from a more subjective, emotional and sentimental perspective. For this reason, Loisearu was stimulated more by the sunshine of Normandy than that of the south of France, and by the lights of dawn and dusk rather than the midday sun; he was attracted to gentle light that appeared to permeate the air and embrace living things, feathery cotton blushing a beautiful pink, shining air, illuminated mists, and an attractive, delicate use of color ---- these are the hallmarks of his work. Loiseau's landscapes, with their modest color contrast, and set beneath clouds and among the mist, possess more beauty of touch than those of other impressionists, such as Monet or Sisley.

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Gustave Loiseau
(1865 - 1935)
La falaise a St. Jouin

1907
Oil on canvas
60Å~73cm