Charles Camoin, a flamboyant exhibition!
"As a colorist, I have always been and still am a free Fauve"
Yes, Cézanne was right to encourage him to paint whores! There is a joyful freedom in looking at his paintings! While confronting the models of Western art, Camoin tends to build a modern expression of the nude, of an uninhibited and liberated body in total contrast with the good morals of the right-thinking bourgeoisie of the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. He frees himself from a faithful representation in favor of a plastic expressiveness which is always a work from nature. The living has passed through the filter of the colorful sensation and a perfect composition that induces a beautiful energy!
Charles Camoin (1879 - 1965) arrived in Paris in 1897 and frequented Gustave Moreau's studio at the Beaux-Arts where he meets Henri Matisse and Albert Marquet.
Together they travel the city and its surroundings to paint landscapes in a post-impressionist vein, with composition and a colorful touch.
Like the pioneers of photography, they "take to the streets" to sketch the silhouettes of passers-by or their immediate environment in an elliptical and concise line. Paris is a real playground and experience. Camoin learns to tame his new environment and to appropriate his art. He frequents the Bateau-Lavoir, settles in Montmartre. The bohemian years, the "dog" years, the painting is affected, darker, more expressionist, surrounded by a heavy black line. Is this what he wanted to forget by destroying part of his work on his return from his trip to Tangier where he had joined Matisse in the winter of 1913-14? From his travels, he reconnects with brighter colors, interested in the transcription of atmospheres.
And as a constant, the living, passed through the filter of the colored sensation and translated by the material on the canvas according to a pictorial harmony capable of expressing life.
Lola on the terrace, 1910
woman with veil
Sleeping Beauty, 1904
The Tuileries Basin, 1903
Two pines in the creeks of Piana, Corsica, circa 1910
The Great Bathers , 1963
new treatment of the figure integrated into the landscape, which owes as much to Cézanne as to Renoir.
Young Creole, 1904
Resting Woman, 1908
