François Gauzi · Late 19th century · Watercolour over pen and ink · 31.5 × 36 cm · Original title : Séance de peinture en plein air
On a country path in the Brie, an unlikely gathering has assembled to paint from the motif: a black-and-white bull holds a brush before his easel, an ochre sheep wields its palette with diligence, while other painters, fully human, busy themselves beneath a white parasol. François Gauzi turns the plein-air session, that sacred ritual of pictorial modernity, into a burlesque scene in which the boundary between the artist and his usual model collapses.
The black ink line, nervous and spontaneous, outlines the forms without confining them, while the watercolour lays down its transparent washes of sky blue, tender green and golden ochre. Beneath the humour surfaces a lucid reflection on the repetition of motifs and poses in the plein-air painting of the Brie, and an affectionate look at a community that made the landscape a shared territory.
Notice · Galerie de Crécy