Victor Charreton (1864-1937) - April in Auvergne, the Conversation

Oil on canvas signed lower right

Dimensions : Height 59 x Width 72 cm (With frame : 90 x 102 cm)

Victor Charreton was born in 1864 in Isère. After studying law in Grenoble, he decided in 1902 to devote himself to his passion, painting. He moved to Paris, and until 1913 undertook numerous trips to capture the light of very different landscapes, from Algeria to Holland, through Spain, England and Belgium.

Charreton is a self-taught painter and modernist. His art is unique, unclassifiable. He developed his own techniques and his own supports. In his landscapes, the color dominates the drawing which is quickly sketched with a pencil on the cardboard or the bare canvas. He paints on the ground, without preparation, and practices painting "in reserve", which lets the support appear from which he uses the color. The material, oil paint most often, is applied directly with a knife or a brush, and the chromatic juxtapositions he makes are frank and daring.

The power of Victor Charreton's works is comparable to the Fauvist works produced by Matisse or Derain at the time Victor Charreton moved to Paris. The Auvergne, Brittany, and Provence are the subjects that will remain dear to him throughout his life.

Our painting is quite large, which is an important criterion for Victor Charreton: the artistic power of this artist is rarely expressed in small formats, hence the large price differences. Charreton's modernist vision is demonstrated with this work: In flat tints or in spaced touches, the pure and very thick colored pictorial material was deposited with the tube directly on the painting, prefiguring the methods of the post-war period. Charreton makes the tree in bloom a true bas-relief. This work, done around 1915, still exploits the Fauve movement where pure colors clash and complement each other. A great specialist of the Auvergne and the Massif Central, Charreton perfectly masters the effects of relief, using clever level lines to bring this composition to life, as beautiful as it is daring.

Museums in which works by Charreton are exhibited:
Paris, Musée d’Orsay
Paris, Petit Palais
New York
Madrid
Lyon
Cleveland
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