Henri-Edmond Cross

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Henri-Edmond Cross ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}; 20 May 1856 – 16 May 1910), born Henri-Edmond-Joseph Delacroix ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}), was a French painter and printmaker. He is most acclaimed as a master of Neo-Impressionism and he played an important role in shaping the second phase of that movement. He was a significant influence on Henri Matisse and many other artists. His work was instrumental in the development of Fauvism.

Background and education

Henri-Edmond-Joseph Delacroix was born in Douai,<ref name="wie"/> a commune in the Nord department in northern France, on 20Template:NbspMay 1856. He had no surviving siblings. His parents, with a family history of ironmongery,<ref name="tad13"/> were Alcide Delacroix, a French adventurer, and British Fanny Woollett.<ref name="tur124"/>

In 1865 the family moved to a location near Lille, a northern French city close to the Belgian border. Alcide's cousin, Dr.Template:NbspAuguste Soins, recognized Henri's artistic talent and was very supportive of his artistic inclinations, even financing the boy's first drawing instructions under painter Carolus-Duran the following year.<ref name="pas"/> Henri was Duran's protégé for a year.<ref name="tad13"/> His studies continued for a short time in Paris in 1875 with François Bonvin<ref name="pas"/> before returning to Lille. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, and in 1878 he enrolled at the Écoles Académiques de Dessin et d'Architecture, studying for three years in the studio of Alphonse Colas.<ref name="tur124"/><ref name="lop"/> His art education continued, under fellow Douai artist Émile Dupont-Zipcy,<ref name="tur124"/> after moving to Paris in 1881.<ref name="cle291"/>

Early work

File:Madame Hector France, Cross.jpg
Madame Hector France, 1891, Musée d'Orsay

Cross's early works, portraits and still lifes, were in the dark colors of Realism.<ref name="cle289"/> In order to distinguish himself from the famous Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix, he changed his name in 1881, shortening and Anglicizing his birth name to "Henri Cross" – the French word croix means cross.<ref name="cle291"/> 1881 was also the year of his first exhibition at the Salon des Artistes Français.<ref name="lop"/> He painted many landscapes on an 1883 trip to the Alpes-Maritimes, accompanied by his family. Dr.Template:NbspSoins, who was also along on the trip, was the subject of a painting that Cross exhibited at Nice's Exposition Universelle later in the year.<ref name="tad14"/> During the Mediterranean trip, Cross met Paul Signac,<ref name="cle291"/> who became a close friend and artistic influence.

In 1884 Cross co-founded the Société des Artistes Indépendants,<ref name="cle289"/> which consisted of artists displeased with the practices of the official Salon, and presented unjuried exhibitions without prizes.<ref name="tad8"/> There, he met and became friends with many artists involved in the Neo-Impressionist movement, including Georges Seurat, Albert Dubois-Pillet, and Charles Angrand.<ref name="lop"/> Despite his association with the Neo-Impressionists, Cross did not adopt their style for many years. His work continued to manifest influences such as Jules Bastien-Lepage and Édouard Manet, as well as the Impressionists.<ref name="lop"/> The change from his early, somber, Realist work was gradual. His color palette became lighter, working in the brighter colors of Impressionism. He also worked en plein air. In the latter part of the 1880s, he painted pure landscapes that showed the influence of Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro. In about 1886, again attempting to differentiate himself from another French artist – this time, Henri Cros – he again changed his name, finally adopting "Henri-Edmond Cross".<ref name="tur124"/>

File:Henri-Edmond Cross, 1893, La ferme, soir (The farm, evening) oil on canvas, 65.0 x 92.0 cm, Private collection, Paris.JPG
The farm, evening, 1893, private collection

In 1891 Cross began painting in the Neo-Impressionist style, and exhibited his first large piece using this technique in an Indépendants show.<ref name="tur124"/> That painting was a divisionist portrait of Madame Hector France, née Irma Clare,<ref name="ros"/> whom Cross had met in 1888 and would marry in 1893.<ref name="pas"/> Robert Rosenblum wrote that "the picture is softly charged with a granular, atmospheric glow".<ref name="ros"/>

Cross had wintered in the south of France from 1883 onward,<ref name="ham"/> until, suffering from rheumatism, he finally moved there full-time in 1891.<ref name="lop"/> His works were still exhibited in Paris. His first residence in southern France was in Cabasson, near Le Lavandou,<ref name="tur124"/> then he settled a short distance away, in the small hamlet of Saint-Clair, where he spent the remainder of his life, leaving only for trips to Italy in 1903 and 1908, and for his annual Indépendants exhibits in Paris.<ref name="lop"/> In 1892 Cross's friend Paul Signac moved to nearby Saint-Tropez,<ref name="tad6"/> where they frequently hosted gatherings in Cross's garden, attended by artists including Henri Matisse, André Derain, and Albert Marquet.<ref name="mma"/>

File:Henri-Edmond Cross - The Evening Air - Google Art Project.jpg
L'air du soir, c.Template:Nbsp1893, Musée d'Orsay

Cross's affinity with the Neo-Impressionist movement extended beyond the painting style to include their political philosophies. Like Signac, Pissarro, and other Neo-Impressionists, Cross believed in anarchist principles, with hope for a utopian society.<ref name="tur125"/> In 1896 Cross created a lithograph, L'Errant (The Wanderer). This marked the first time he had worked with a publisher,<ref name="tad16"/> and the piece was featured anonymously in Les Temps Nouveaux, Jean Grave's anarchist journal.<ref name="tur125"/> Cross's anarchist sentiments influenced his choice of subjects: he painted scenes illustrating a utopian world that could exist through anarchism.<ref name="wie"/>

The process of creating Divisionist paintings with numerous small dots of color was tedious and time-consuming. When Cross wanted to depict quick impressions, he created watercolor or colored pencil images in his sketchbooks. He wrote of a rustic French outing:

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Later years

File:Henri Edmond Cross La Plage de Saint-Clair.jpg
La Plage de Saint-Clair, 1896

Cross's paintings of the early- to mid-1890s are characteristically Pointillist, with closely and regularly positioned tiny dots of color. Beginning around 1895, he gradually shifted his technique, instead using broad, blocky brushstrokes and leaving small areas of exposed bare canvas between the strokes.<ref name="wie"/> The resulting surfaces resembled mosaics,<ref name="mma"/> and the paintings may be seen as precursors to Fauvism and Cubism.<ref name="cle289"/> In the Pointillist style, minute spots of paint were used to blend colors harmoniously;<ref name="wie"/> in contrast, the strategy in "second generation Neo-Impressionism"<ref name="lop"/> was to keep the colors separate, resulting in "vibrant shimmering visual effects through contrast".<ref name="wie"/> Cross stated that the Neo-Impressionists were "far more interested in creating harmonies of pure color, than in harmonizing the colors of a particular landscape or natural scene".<ref name="tad17"/> Matisse and other artists were very influenced by the late-career Cross,<ref name="wie"/> and such works were instrumental in forming the principles of Fauvism.<ref name="lop"/> Among the other artists influenced by Cross were André Derain, Henri Manguin, Charles Camoin, Albert Marquet, Jean Puy, and Louis Valtat.<ref name="cle289"/>

File:La fuite des nymphes.jpg
La fuite des nymphes, c.Template:Nbsp1906, Musée d'Orsay
File:Henri Edmond Cross - Une clairière en Provence (Étude) - Google Art Project.jpg
Une clairière en Provence (Étude), c.Template:Nbsp1906

In 1905 Galerie Druet in Paris mounted Cross's first solo exhibition, which featured thirty paintings and thirty watercolors.<ref name="cle293"/> The show was very successful, receiving critical acclaim, and most of the works were sold. Belgian Symbolist poet Emile Verhaeren, an avid supporter of Neo-Impressionism in his country, provided the preface for the exhibition catalog, writing:

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File:Henri-Edmond Cross, 1908, Les cyprès à Cagnes, oil on canvas, 81 x 100 cm, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.jpg
Cypresses at Cagnes, 1908, Musée d'Orsay

In the early 1880s Cross began to experience trouble with his eyes, which grew more severe in the 1900s. He also increasingly suffered from arthritis. At least in part due to these health issues that plagued him for years, Cross's body of work is relatively small.<ref name="tur125"/> However, in his last years he was productive and very creative,<ref name="tad18"/> and his work was featured in significant solo exhibitions; he received great acclaim from critics and enjoyed commercial success.<ref name="tur125"/>

In 1909 Cross was treated in a Paris hospital for cancer. In January 1910 he returned to Saint-Clair, where he died of the cancer just four days short of his 54th birthday, on 16Template:NbspMay 1910.<ref name="pas"/> His tomb, in the Le Lavandou cemetery, features a bronze medallion designed by his friend, Théo van Rysselberghe.<ref name="tad18"/> In July 1911, the city of Cross's birth, Douai, mounted a retrospective exhibition of his work.<ref name="tad18"/>

Selected exhibitions

File:Henri Edmond Cross - Regatta in Venice - Google Art Project.jpg
Regatta in Venice, 1898/1908

In addition to the exhibitions mentioned above, Cross participated in many others. Octave Maus invited him to exhibit his work in several of the Annual Exhibitions of [[Les XX#The ten Annual Exhibitions of Les XX, 1884-1893|LesTemplate:NbspXX]].<ref name="cle291"/> Cross participated in the Libre Esthétique show of 1895 at Maus's invitation, and also in those of 1897, 1901, 1904, 1908, and 1909. In 1898 he participated with Paul Signac, Maximilien Luce, and Théo van Rysselberghe in the first Neo-Impressionist exhibition in Germany, organized by Harry Kessler at Keller und Reiner Gallery (Berlin).<ref name="cle292"/> In 1907 Félix Fénéon assembled a Cross retrospective in Paris at Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, with Maurice Denis contributing the catalogue preface.<ref name="cle293"/> Other venues with Cross exhibitions included Samuel Bing's L'Art Nouveau à Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel (Paris), Cassirer Gallery (Hamburg, Berlin), Toison d'or exhibition (Moscow), Bernheim-Jeune's Aquarelle et pastel, and various others, including galleries in Paris, Dresden, Weimar, and Munich.<ref name="cle292-3"/>

Collections

Cross works in museums and public art galleries<ref>Henri-Edmond Cross, Artcyclopedia</ref> Template:Div col

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References

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Sources

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Further reading

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  • Cross's twenty-two page Sketchbook from 1897, in the Harvard Art Museums
  • Signac, 1863–1935, a fully digitized exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries, which contains material on Cross (see index)

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