News

News

February 2012

To mark the beginning of this year 2012, here are a few notes
on the period of George Desvallières’ youth.

Concerning the Académie Julian, René Ménard, Lucien Simon and René-Xavier Prinet

Ernest Legouvé very quickly understood that his grandson had a talent for drawing, and that he would be an artist. He had a studio built for him on the fourth floor of his family home in the Rue Saint Marc, in which he and his young painter-friends could benefit from gatherings organised by this most cultivated grandfather. In order to help him more effectively and to accompany him in his work, Ernest himself went regularly to the Louvre to consult great masters’ biographies, and arranged to have George take drawing lessons by his friend the painter Jules-Elie Delaunay (1828-1891), who had won the Prix de Rome in 1856, and became George’s teacher from 1877. As a disciple of Ingres, Flandrin and Delacroix, Delaunay was opposed to the rigidity of academic art, and taught his pupil sound drawing technique. Together, master and pupil made several trips to Switzerland, Italy and Provence. Delaunay introduced George to his friend Gustave Moreau (1826-1898), whom he had known during his stay at the Villa Médicis from 1857 to 1860. This encounter made a permanent change in George’s life. Under the influence of his new master he profoundly modified his conception of a work of art. From the society painter he might have been, he now became a true artist.

© Musée d’art et d’histoire, Ville de Genève, Cabinet d'arts graphiques, inv. n° 1903-5
Photo : Bettina Jacot-Descombes
The young artist, self-portrait, drawing by George Desvallières
(Identified and classified in the Catalogue Raisonné of George Desvallières in 2004)

At the same time George entered the Académie Julian in the Passage des Panoramas in Paris. There he was to make his first painter-friends. The earliest of these was René Ménard (1862-1930), who, like George, had been removed from his Lycée at the age of fifteen in order to work on drawing. He too had been immersed in an erudite atmosphere. His father, who directed the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, and his philosopher-uncle initiated the young man into a culture passionately devoted to ancient Greek mythology. George later acknowledged that the happiest moments of his youth as a painter were spent in the studio set up for his friend near the Sorbonne and at his estate at Barbizon, where Ménard’s father, having got them out of bed to admire the sunrise over the forest, told them his memories of the great artists he had known: Millet, Diaz, Daubigny and Corot.
On weekdays, prior to occupying the front row at the Académie Julian, in order to get maximum benefit from the classes, the two young artists met together in the early morning in the midst of the hubbub of the women in the Halles food market! Thus began the great friendship between their two families that was to continue beyond the marriages of both men. It was from Varengeville-Sur-Mer (Upper Normandy), where the Desvallières family spent their summer holidays at “Bois de l’Eglise”, that George and Daniel, his younger son, set out for the front in Alsace at the beginning of August 1914, on the declaration of the First World War. That was their last happy memory of Daniel who was to lose his life in March 1915. Fate later decided that George Desvallières would succeed to his friend Ménard’s chair at the Institut (French Academy): he delivered his friend’s panegyric there on October 28th 1933, retracing the life of the talented painter who “contrived to reconcile historic landscape with 1830’s naturalism”, bringing alive again for the last time with his memories, that blessed time of their youth: “Ménard’s studio was the image of bliss in a framework of beauty!”

Having been admitted to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (painting section) in 1880, when Elie Delaunay became professor, George remained there for only one year. He then did his military service at Orleans (1880-1881) alongside Lucien Simon (1861-1950). In a picturesque account, Desvallières tells of his first encounter with this military friend, who, at first, exasperated him with his “disabused airs and his lassitude”. Having decided to provoke this “dull fellow” by tipping his cap to one side with a broom-handle, he succeeded in producing some general hilarity, and a haughty disdain from his victim. However, at the end of the afternoon, after the deafening uproar of suppertime, Desvallières, discouraged at the idea of having to spend a whole year in this unpleasant atmosphere, went out into the courtyard where “an evening sky, blue as flax, lined with grey and pearly clouds,” filled his eyes with joy; his artist’s heart already felt comforted when he heard behind him a voice exclaiming: “My God, what a lovely sky, so fine, that grey and that blue!” Turning round “quite dumb-founded, to see what brother this might be, what soul-mate this was, wedged between two barrack walls covered with horrible red tiles, who managed to discover such a little jewel which Divine Providence had sent to both men as a consolation” ; it was Lucien Simon! From that day on, their friendship became firmly established.
On his return to Paris, Lucien Simon re-joined his new friend at the Académie Julien. Desvallières became his mentor, as one who had already studied with two masters, Elie Delaunay and Gustave Moreau. From the first of these Lucien heard it said that Desvallières was “the most talented young man he had ever seen”. To the second he owed his “artistic oracle” and his “concern for complex and combined colorations”. As a guest of Ernest Legouvé in his salon, Lucien Simon could listen to the brilliant thinkers that frequented it, and was conscious of the high level of discussion he heard. On leaving the Académie Julian, the two friends came together again to work in the studio on the fourth floor of the Rue Saint Marc, along with other painters such as Ménard and Dinet, where the grandfather came to have them “take advantage of his wisdom and kindness.” At that time Lucien Simon considered that George Desvallières, more than any other, was “the most refined and strongest naturalist”.
After their respective marriages in 1890, their two wives, Jeanne and Marguerite became the best friends in the world, their friendship being sealed by a joint trip to London, and confirmed by other stays abroad and holidays spent with the Desvallières family at Bénodet (Brittany). The two artists often presented joint exhibitions in the official salons and galleries. In 1908, following his stay in Algeria with M. Meley, Lucien Simon introduced George Desvallières to this amateur of art who became one of his most important sponsors. During the First World War Lucien and Jeanne Simon, offered their friend constant admiration and support, from the outbreak when his son Daniel lost his life in March 1915 up to the final combats. Lucien Simon even made a visit to his friend on the front lines in Alsace, during the hard winter of 1917.

Until the end of their lives Lucien Simon and George Desvallières, with complete reciprocal delicacy and respect, never ceased to support each other and to exchange advice on their markedly different artistic careers. The painter of Bigoudens (Brittany) was to be one of the secret artisans of his friend’s formal recognition by the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1930, which he celebrated with a fine eulogy. On George Desvallières death, following the Simon family’s donation of the “Tireurs à l’Arc” to the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, Marguerite Desvallières recalled to Lucienne, one of Lucien Simon’s daughters, this “tender friendship” which had continually survived thanks to the deep feelings of their early relationship. Lucienne was moved that the name of her father had been added to the picture, and Marguerite concluded: “This union between two friends is so touching, both being so exceptional in their gifts and qualities.”

Finally mention must be made of René-Xavier Prinet (1861-1946). This artist’s family also occupies also an important place in the life of the Desvallières family. Desvallières met him at the Académie Julian where Prinet founded the “Bande Noire” with Lucien Simon, René Ménard, André Dauchez and Charles Cottet, whilst Desvallières’ entered into the adventure of the Salon d’Automne. Nonetheless their different orientations did not prevent them from undertaking trips to London, Venice and Spain, nor from discovering, with their wives and other artist friends, the cultural riches and landscapes of these new horizons that were to be the basis of their future artistic compositions. As a family, the Prinets, who were childless, welcomed the Desvallières children as if they were their own. Their stays at “Double-Six”, the family estate in Normandy where the Prinets openly invited the Desvallières family, also provided their happiest memories. There were moments of bliss: “Cabourg remains one of the happiest times of my life, may you both be heartily thanked”, Marguerite wrote to Jeanne Prinet in 1915, at the time of the death of her son Daniel on the front in Alsace.

These friendships, born from the beauty of nature around an easel, enabled these young artists from the Académie Julian to develop their art. As Ernest Legouvé said, “they kindled their talents from the flame of different masters, and that is what made them truly free artists themselves.”