August Morisot: Cathedral of the Pines

"I hear you call, pine tree, I hear you on the hill, by the silent pond

where the lotus flowers bloom, I hear you call, pine tree.

What is it you call, pine tree, when the rains fall, when the winds

blow and when the stars appear, what is it you call, pine tree?

I hear you call, pine tree, but I am blind and do not know how to

reach you, pine tree. Who will take me to you, pine tree?"

 - "I Hear You Call, Pine Tree" by Yoni Noguchi

Half a century after Japonisme took tout Paris by storm, the artist August Morisot interpreted the woods of southwest France using what he had learned from ukiyo-e, "art of the floating world,' its flatness and the high stylization of its constituent elements. 

This is Le Grand Bois, the Meyriat Forest near Bourg-sur-Bresse where August Morisot summered with his family from 1904 to 1913. Deploying black ink with the precision of a goldsmith, he used shades of red and orange to pattern the leaves and  their complementary colors of blue and  purple for the shadows and forest undergrowth. Morisot's style has also been compared to Maurice Denis in its oscillation between the style of the Nabis and Art Nouveau.

August Morisot (1857-1951) excelled in several media: painting, engraving, textile design,  and even glass-making. A native of Burgundy, he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyon from 1880 to 1885. He taught at his alma mater from 1895 until 1933 when he  retired in 1933 and moved with his wife Pauline and his daughter Marcelle to Brussels. He died there in 1951.

Morisot was sent to the Orinoco Basin in Venezuela as part of a scientific investigation in 1886 by France's Ministry of Public Information; his job was to document the local flora and fauna. The effect light filtering through the canopy of tropical vegetation made a profound impression on Morisot, reminding him of Gothic windows. The journey was perilous and Morisot risked his life for it. He suffered violent fevers, resulting in a religious conversion. When he returned to France he converted to Catholicism. Jules Verne would use this expedition as the basis for his book Le Superbe Orenoque (1898). After 1900, his taste for symbolist literature led him to populate his forest landscapes with fairies; he wrote The Voices of the Forest about it.

Note: Yoni Noguchi ( 1875-1947) was the first Japanese poet to write poems in English.

Image: August Morisot - Le Grand Bois - circa 1917, watercolor, pen, black ink, and gouache on beige cardboard, Musee d'Orsay, Paris.