ANDRE BARBIER | Port d'Honfleur
Oil on Canvas
50 x 61 cms / 19¾ x 24 inches
Signed 'André Barbier' (lower left)
A broad expanse of water occupies the foreground, rendered in pale greens and blues that dissolve into one another beneath a high, luminous sky. To the left, a low quay lined with trees forms a horizontal band of fresh green, against which several small sailing boats are moored, their masts rising vertically and their cream sails catching light. To the right, across the harbour entrance, a slender lighthouse and pier appear in softened silhouette, partially absorbed by atmospheric haze. The viewpoint is set at water level, looking across the harbour mouth so that the open channel leads the eye into depth. Paint is applied in thin, layered strokes, with more defined touches articulating the boats and shoreline. Painted during the artist’s engagement with the Normandy coast, Port d’Honfleur belongs to a sustained exploration of harbour subjects observed under varying light and tidal 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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