Léon Germain Pelouse in his atelier, painted by Émile-Louis Foubert in 1891, the year Pelouse died at age 52.

Léon Germain Pelouse (1 October 1838 – 31 July 1891) was a self-taught French painter born in Pierrelaye (Val-d'Oise, France),[1] who became one of the leading landscape painters of France in the last half of the 19th century.

Life and career

At sixteen, he began working as a traveling salesman. He began painting when he was twenty, as he was serving in the French army as a conscript.[2] His professional painting career began at twenty-seven, with the exhibition of his Les Environs de Précy (Near Précy) at the Salon de Paris of 1865.[3] He moved to Brittany, and there, inspired by nature around Pont-Aven and Rochefort-en-Terre, Pelouse painted landscapes which were exhibited at the Salon de Paris in the following years. From 1873, when he received his first medal, for Vallée de Cernay,[4] he gained success and critical approval.

The French government bought many of his works which are now in the collections of numerous museums, including the Musée d'Orsay,[5] the Musée Malraux, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes.[6] His works are also held in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and in museums in San Francisco, Ghent, Oslo, Munich, and Sydney.

École de Cernay; students

P.S. Krøyer, Le Déjeuner des artistes à Cernay-la-Ville, 1879. Pelouse is the standing figure at right.

During the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, Pelouse enlisted as a National Guardsman. During his serivce, he spent time in the town of Cernay-la-Ville, near Paris, and was drawn to the surrounding scenery. In 1871, Pelouse moved to Cernay, boarding at the inn of Léopold Lequesne. 1876, with his wife and stepson, he rented a small house on the village square.[7]

Pelouse was visited by other artists and attracted an international coterie of pupils, who socialized in the welcoming inns of Place de Cernay-la-Ville, in particular the establishment of Léopold Lequesne, which became known as Au Rendezvous des Artistes.[8][9] Pelouse and this colony of colleagues and students become the École de Cernay, of which Pelouse was the acknowledged chef de file.[10]

Paradoxically, the self-taught Pelouse became the mentor and teacher of many painters, who came from as far as Sweden and Canada to study and paint outdoors with him in the fields and woods outside Cernay-la-Ville. These included Madame Annaly, Érnest Baillet, Harriet Backer, Charles Émile Dameron, Nicolas Dracopolis, Allan Edson, Eugène Galien-Laloue, Léon Joubert, Kitty Lange Kielland, Adolphe-Frédéric Lejeune, Émile Le Marié des Landelles, Flavien-Louis Peslin, Albert Rigolot, Louis Telingue, and Percy Franklin Woodcock.[11][12][13][14][15]

Pelouse welcomed female artists, including Norwegian Kitty Lange Kielland and her compatriot and friend Harriet Backer. They accompanied Pelouse on an excursion to Rochefort-en-Terre, in Brittany. Backer later recalled: "Léon Pelouse had proposed to us two women that we spend the summer in his company in a location he had discovered and kept secret: it was a way of getting a jump on new and original subjects, instead of the well-worn themes exhibited at the Salon...Under a discreet disguise, we set out with Pelouse, his wife, and two of his male pupils." She added: "Pelouse is the most natural man I've ever met...I'm sure if you were to arrive one evening while we're at the table, you'd be extremely surprised. Pelouse and Érnest Baillet each scream louder than the other to make themselves heard, to the point that one wonders if they'll come to blows—then it all ends with outbursts of laughter, so loud we have to cover our ears."[16]

In the spring and summer of 1879, the Danish painter P.S. Krøyer stayed at Pelouse's home in Cernay, and painted Le Déjeuner des artistes à Cernay-la-Ville, which captures the social scene at Léopold inn. Pelouse can be seen standing at right, smoking, framed by the glow of light from the window.[17][18]

Other locations

While based in Cernay, Pelouse made numerous excursions to paint the scenery at Pont-Aven, Rochefort-en-Terre Concarneau, Honfleur, Trouville, Marlotte in the Forest of Fontainebleau, and beyond France to Belgium and Holland.[9]

In 1884, the Pelouse family left Cernay to return to Paris. Between 1886 and 1888, the artist painted near Besançon, in the Loue valley dear to Gustave Courbet. About sixty paintings date from this period.[9]

Family

Raingo-Pelouse family tree

After the death of her husband Ernest Raingo in 1871 (and by 1876[19]), his widow, née Lucy-Alexandrine Fossey (1842-1895), married Pelouse. Raingo's sister Angélique was the wife of Claude Monet.

In 1890, in failing health, Pelouse officially adopted Lucy's son by Raingo, Jean, who took the name Raingo-Pelouse.[20] Jean's sons Germain, Bernard and Pierre also took this name. Germain Raingo-Pelouse (1893-1963) became a noted artist, but never knew his grandfather and namesake. (Their lifespans did not overlap).[21] Claude Monet was his granduncle.

References

  1. ↑ Champlin, "Pelouse, Léon Germain"
  2. ↑ Grand Palais, p.148.
  3. ↑ Fresneau, p. 99.
  4. ↑ Jules Claretie, Peintres et sculpteurs contemporains, Paris, Charpentier, 1874, p. xi.
  5. ↑ Musée d'Orsay, Aux couleurs de la mer : Paris, Musée d'Orsay, 6 novembre 1999-16 janvier 2000, Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1999, p. 65.
  6. ↑ "Pelouse Léon Germain", Portail des collections des musées de France, Paris, Joconde, 2013
  7. ↑ de Lassus, pp. 41-42
  8. ↑ Dutat, p. 24-25.
  9. 1 2 3 de Lassus, p. 42.
  10. ↑ de Lassus, p. 40.
  11. ↑ de Lassus, p. 43.
  12. ↑ "Léon Germain Pelouse". association-peintres-en-vallee-de-chevreuse.fr. Retrieved December 30, 2023.
  13. ↑ Sicotte (2002), p. 22.
  14. ↑ Sicotte (2005), p. 117.
  15. ↑ Béland (2017).
  16. ↑ Dutat, p. 25.
  17. ↑ Aas, Tanja (August 9, 2022). "Close to: Léon Germain Pelouse (1838-1891)". skagenskunstmuseer.dk.
  18. ↑ Regarding the location depicted, see Dutat, p. 25.
  19. ↑ de Lassus, p. 42.
  20. ↑ "Adoption", Le Droit: journal des tribunaux, November 5, 1890, p. 1057: "La première chambre de la Cour d’appel, présidée par M. Périvier, premier président, a confirmé le jugement du Tribunal de la Seine, portant qu'il y a lieu à l’adoption de Lucien-Jean-Léon Raingo, par Germain-Léon Pelouse."
  21. ↑ "Généalogie familiale développée par Jean Raingo-Pelouse," Le Gaulois, August 4, 1908.

Sources

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