Nenri Le Sidaner
French, 1862-1939

Sun on Snow, Chartres (Neige au Soleil, Chartres), 1902
oil on canvas
23 x 31 1/2 in.

SBMA, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Stephen G. Seech
1962.7

COMMENTS

French painter and pastellist. He studied briefly under Alexandre Cabanel at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1880, but his admiration for the Impressionists led him to reject this academic training and to work alone from 1882 to 1887 at Etaples in northern France. He first exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français, where he won third prize in 1891, and later at the Salon de la Société Nationale. The subject-matter and smoothly painted surfaces of some of Le Sidaner’s early paintings, such as "Sunday" (1898; Douai, Mus. Mun.), a picture of evanescent young girls in long white dresses against a very low horizon, caused him to be compared with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood but also allied him with the Symbolists. From 1900, when he moved to Beauvais and later to Gerberoy, Oise, he began to paint urban landscapes and gardens, often in a deserted state. He began at that time to favour broken brushwork reminiscent of Georges Seurat, while working primarily from memory rather than from direct observation. After a stay in Venice in 1905 he painted a series of views, such as "Bridge of Sighs" (1906; Paris, Petit Pal.), that were hugely successful when exhibited in London and at the Salon de la Société Nationale in 1906.

- Vanina Costa, Grove Art Online, 2003

SBMA CURATORIAL LABELS

Although initially a student of Alexandre Cabanel (the academic artist most reviled by the novelist and art critic Emile Zola), Le Sidaner quickly turned to the Impressionists for inspiration. This painting, with its roseate light, shows off Le Sidaner’s adaptation of Seurat’s broken brushwork and was likely painted from memory rather than direct observation, which accounts for its Symbolist quality.

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