With the recent wave of impressionist sales and exhibitions, the subject is consequently much on my mind. Hopefully, on the minds of plenty of other people’s, too, as we do have one or two- or more- excellent impressionist pictures for sale.
Arguably one of the best is Loiseau’s le port de Dieppe. Although painted a half century after the first impressionist exhibition, its linkage with works by an earlier generation of artists is abundantly clear. That said, the significant form that is a central tenet of impressionism has also been joined successfully with the introduction of a flattened perspective more representative of what was at the time the picture was painted, very contemporary. While his viewpoint and use of color functions effectively to draw the viewer into the picture plane, the orthogonals work well in tandem with Loiseau’s palette. Interestingly, Loiseau incises within the impasto a series of parallel diagonal lines using the back-end of his brush to accentuate the roof tiles and courses of brickwork, enhancing the effect to architecture receding into the picture.
It’s interesting, a description of Loiseau’s work is difficult to render without a discussion of his technique. This can have the sad effect of occluding the very real accomplishment of Loiseau’s work, not only aesthetically but, frankly, emotionally, too. We were pleased to have our good friend Thierry Marchand, himself born and raised in Dieppe, wax eloquent about the painting and the manner in which Loiseau captured the very essence of the Dieppe that Thierry knew growing up. While impressionism is not entirely antithetical to photographic realism, it is the stimulation of senses beyond the visual that forms the basis for the enduring appeal of works like le port de Dieppe.