ANDRE BARBIER | Notre-Dame de Paris sous la Neige
Oil on Canvas
73 x 60 cms / 28¾ x 23½ inches
Signed 'André Barbier' (lower right)
The Seine fills the foreground, its green-grey surface broken by drifting sheets of ice rendered in irregular, pale strokes. On the right, a narrow, snow-covered embankment curves into the picture, lined with slender trees whose dark trunks and sparse branches lean towards the water. Beyond the river, the west front of Notre-Dame emerges through a veil of winter haze. The towers and central façade are softened and partially obscured by the diffused light. The composition is structured around the broad horizontal of the river, countered by the vertical accents of the trees and cathedral towers. Paint is applied in thin, lightly scumbled layers, with thicker touches describing the floating ice. Executed during the artist’s engagement with Parisian river views in winter, Notre-Dame de Paris sous la Neige forms part of a sustained exploration of the city’s monuments under shifting seasonal conditions.
Inspired by his Impressionist forbears, André Barbier delighted in depicting verdant forests and luminous seascapes at different times of the day and in a variety of atmospheric conditions. Like many of his contemporaries in early nineteenth-century Paris, Barbier travelled extensively in pursuit of subjects for his landscapes.
In 1916 Barbier met Claude Monet and the two artists immediately struck up a friendship. Monet was so taken with Barbiers works that he sponsored an exhibition of his works with a preface by Monets biographer and friend, Gustave Geffroy, who urged him to build of mist and light, a world of poetry. Although a follower of the Impressionists, Barbiers style is wholeheartedly distinct. Barbier built up compositions using delicate layers of paint in a post-impressionist manner, often using a flickering outline to the forms within the landscape and imbuing his compositions with a delicate haze of light.
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