Jean-Julien LEMORDANT (Saint-Malo, 1878-Paris, 1968) - Lot 63

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  3. Jean-Julien LEMORDANT (Saint-Malo, 1878-Paris, 1968) - Lot 63
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Lot n° 63
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Jean-Julien LEMORDANT (Saint-Malo, 1878-Paris, 1968) - Lot 63
Jean-Julien LEMORDANT (Saint-Malo, 1878-Paris, 1968) Workers in a workshop, 1913 Oil on canvas signed lower right and dated 1913. 38 x 46 cm. (Two small pieces on the back at the top). Son of a simple mason who was occasionally a sailor, Jean-Julien Lemordant studied painting in Rennes, then in Paris in the workshop of Léon Bonnat. He became a member of the studio in 1897, where he met Henry Caro-Delvaille, but also the future "Fauvists" Raoul Dufy and Othon Friesz. He himself would be called "the Breton Fauve". In 1902, he was awarded the Chenavard prize by the Institute. The same year, he settled almost permanently in Lower Brittany, particularly in Saint-Guénolé. An admirer of Paul Gauguin, but also of Charles Cottet, he dedicated his career to Brittany and more specifically to the Bigouden country. In 1904, the Hôtel de L'Epée in Quimper asked him to decorate a 65 square meter room. Lemordant delivered twenty-three paintings that were very well received. In 1913, he received his major commission, the ceiling of the Rennes Opera House, for which he painted a wild Breton dance. Mobilized during the First World War, he lost his sight during the battle of Artois in October 1915. He will recover it only in 1935 after many operations. After the war, he became the symbol of the talented artist who sacrificed himself to his country, which earned him a certain popularity. Jean-Julien Lemordant remains today one of the great painters of the Breton identity. What are these two meticulous workers doing, sitting at their workbenches and wielding hammers? One of the windows that illuminates them seems to be open to the sea, and we think we can discern sailboats - a sign that the scene takes place in Brittany. The image is distinguished above all by its pictorial strength. As early as 1904, the critic Louis Vauxcelles - the same one who had named the Fauves - remarked on the young painter's "ardor as a colorist": "His juxtapositions of pure tones, his nervous composition, his naïve and strong technique are already his own." The following year, in L'Aurore, François Crucy confirmed this feeling: "The ardor, the enthusiasm of this newcomer artist grabbed me, if I dare say. I was first stunned by the execution, the way of painting, original and violent: this audacity of a painter who paints brutally a brutal spectacle astonished and delighted me. (These are) the most obvious signs of the sincerity of the painter." These comments apply perfectly to our painting whose energetic impasto, almost expressionist touch, the unusual range of blues and reds, participate in the greatest modernity.
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