Catalogue of French and British Contemporary Art

Your exhibition begins with those who brought Impressionism to an end or were the first rebels to it: Cezanne, Seurat, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec. Names such as pointillisme for Seurat and symbolism for Gauguin can hardly explain their taste. The only thing to do is to become familiar with their personality and to understand how and from what point of view each of them influenced contempor- ary art. If to these five great painters it had been possible to add Renoir and Degas, you would have been shown all the real fathers of contemporary art. Their roots in Impressionism, their freedom from tradition as against reality, their gigantic struggle against the taste of their own days, their profoundly expressive drawing, their exceptional splendor of coloring; all these things were the elements of their own greatness and the models for following art for their successors. When you consider contemporary artists, a choice has to be carefully discussed. In no epoch were perfect artists numerous. There is no reason why we shou!d assume that perfect artists are many to-day. We can but recognise a kind of perfection in some of them. Rouault reveals an entire world of religious feeling in every touch of his thicki coloring, independently from the subject of a painting. Everyone knows how Matisse succeeds in creating new harmonies of coloring and in giving them an exceptional decorative value. Picasso has great renown as a discoverer of new horizons in painting, as a leader of taste in painting during the last few decades. Modigliani inherited the great tradition of the Florentine Renaissance and trans- lated it into a language very close to our passions. The sensibility of Braque is so acute that he suggests impressionistic values even in a purely abstract painting. Other artists, too, have their own perfection. Every one of you can recognise it by sympathy and attention. The only necessary condition is the avoidance of prejudice and a certain scepticism about the laws of art. Indeed, an artistic personality is the only law of his art. L I O N E L L O V E N T U R I ( A u t h o r o f "Cezanne," etc.) Paris, July, 1939. C A T A L O G U E Of PAINTINGS and SCULPTURE FRENCH PAINTINGS Pierre Bonnard 1. B A R N W I T H OXEN Georges, Braque 2. ETRETAT Collection o f Sir Michael Sadler, K.C.S.I., Oxford. Collection o f George Eumorfopoulos, London. Maurice Brianchon 3. L E L A C A U BOIS D E BOULOGNE Paul Cezanne (1839-1906). 4. M O N T S A I N T E V I CTOR I E (Water-cclor) Collection o f the Courtauld Institute, London. 4a. C O U R D ' U N E F ERME (between 1879-1882) S Caillebotle Bequest, Musee d u Louvre, Paris. Raoul Dufy 5. COUR S E S Collection o f M.. Marcel Kapferer, Paris. Othon Friesz 1 6. MARINE Collection o f M . Adolphe Milich, Paris. Paul Gaugu i n (1848-1903) 7. L E V I L LAGE B R E T O N SOUS L A NE I GE (1903) Collection o f Madame A . Joly-Sigalen, Paris.