One missing link between painting and photography. Two artists and one unlikely friendship.
Three strands of art: the realistic landscape of the Barbizon woods, the Impressionist landscapes of visual perception, and the Symbolist landscape of spirit and emotion.
Even people who had doubts about his painting admired Eugene Carriere (1849-1906). He came to Paris from his native Strassbourg, after apprenticing as a lithographer, to study painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Unable to return home when the Germans occupied Strasbourg in 1870, he joined the army. After being taken prisoner, he found refuge in thoughts of art. In search of commercial work, Carriere spent six cold months in England designing greeting cards. With a wife and child to support, Carriere returned to Paris.
It was at the Sevres Manufactures around 1880 that he met the sculptor Auguste Rodin. They were an unlikely pair but the two became fast friends. Rodin was a womanizer and Carriere was a family man but the two artists inspired each other and often exhibited together. Carriere continued to struggle to make a living while Rodin was lionized, a state of affairs he did everything to promote, unlike the quiet homebody who lived (improbably) in that den of iniquity - Montmartre. Today the Musee Rodin owns several works by Carriere that Rodin bought, both out of admiration and from a desire to help his struggling friend. Carriere made a lithograph of his friend at work that was used as the poster for the Rodin pavillon at the Paris 1900 Exposition Universelle.
In hindsight it is easy to see a connection between Rodin's revolutionary technique, the partial figures emerging from the marble block, and Carriere's subjects emerging through his monochromatic palette. But inspiration and influence are not necessarily simple.
With successes at Galerie L'Art Nouveau Bing in 1896 and at the first Viennea Secession in 1898, Carriere was able to open Academie Carriere in Paris. Among his students were Henri Matisse and Andre Derain . Their radically different styles were linked to their teacher by a common disregard for realistic appearances.
Meanwhile Rodin became the most famous artist in the Western world We should not let his reputation blind us to the influence that Carriere had on pictorial photographers.
Edward Steichen, a photographer in transit from his home in Luxembourg to the United States, studied Carriere's work and wrote about its influence on his pictures. Steichen also met Rodin and photographed him in his studio Like Carriere, the Austrian photographer Heinrich Kuhn also made his family the subject of his work. And an unlikely but documented homage came from Pablo Picasso, who dedicated a drawing of a mother and child to Carriere.
The pictorial way of landscape or its arrnagement of still life can be explained in many ways. From darkness to light, through the quiet vision of Eugene Carriere, is one worth memorializing.
Images:
1. Eugene Carriere - Nelly C.arriere, daughter of the Artist, Musee d"orsay, Paris.
2. Eugene Carriere - Pot de terre, undated, Musee d'Orsay, Paris.
3. Eugene Carriere - Child with a Soupiere, Musee d'Orsay, Paris.
4. Eugene Carriere - Auguste Rodin,. lithograph, 1897, Art Institute of Chicago.
5. Edward Steichen - Rdoin and his Thinker, 1902, Metropolitan Museum of art, NYC.
6. Eugene Carriere - The Writer, Musee d'Orsay, Paris.
7. Edward Steichen - La Cigale, 1901, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.
8. Edward Steichen - Monnlight. Winter, 1902, Metropolitan Museum of art, NYC.
9. Eugene Carriere - Breton Cemetery, Musee d'Orsay, Paris.
4 comments:
Jane - I tried to leave a comment on this post some days ago, but I think I wasn't signed in to Google after a power cut, so it didn't stick! All your recent posts are full of interest, but I think this one exceptional. You bring two artists who thought of themselves as equals back into the balance - one, Rodin, is now world-famous, the other, Carrière, is now largely forgotten. Your post shows how their visions complemented each other, and also brings a human dimension to what might seem a dry footnote of art history. And then you wheel in Steichen and pictorialism! Brilliant.
The brilliance belongs to the artists. I still don't understand (and prudently did not speculate about) why Carriere painted as he did, but Rodin and Steichen both wrote about his importance to their work. I'm not sure whether the Carriere lithograph is the one used for the Paris 1900 poster but at least we get some idea of how Carriere saw his friend. Several contemporary sources waxed sentimental about the Carriere family in a style that is difficult to evaluate at this distance. What is more certain is that Rodin's studio was often an erotic hothouse. The mystery of the friendship remains intact.
With successes at Galerie L'Art Nouveau Bing in 1896 and at the Vienna Secession Exhibition of 1898, Carriere was able to launch his career more confidently.
I may not have ever heard it said before, but I am grateful for the post. In all my lectures on the Viennese Secession exhibitions over the years, I have discussed ONLY the local Viennese artists and the already-famous foreign visitors (like Rodin and Charles Rennie Mackintosh).
Hels, the friendship between Carriere and Rodin would make for an interesting book. Perhaps there is one in French that I have yet to find.
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