GEORGES ROUAULT (1871-1958)


Christ en croix signed 'Rouault' (lower right)oil on canvas25 x 19 3/4 in (63.5 x 50.2 cm)Painted in 1942
|ProvenancePrivate collection, France.Acquired from the above by the present owner.LiteratureB. Dorival & I. Rouault, Rouault, L'Oeuvre Peint, vol. II, Monaco, 1988, no. 2397 (illustrated p. 244).P. Courthion, Georges Rouault, Paris, 1962, n.n (illustrated p. 314)."My real life is back in the age of the cathedrals" – Georges RouaultGeorges Rouault's Christ en croix exemplifies, both thematically and stylistically, the artist's mature work. Rouault's fully developed, late style can be traced back to experiences from his youth. As a fourteen year old he began a five-year apprenticeship as a glass painter and restorer; he worked on repairing medieval stained glass, including those in the magnificent Chartres cathedral. While apprenticing, Rouault also studied at the École des Arts Décoratifs and later continued his education at the École des Beaux-Arts with classmates such as Henri Matisse and Albert Marquet under the tutelage of Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau.In his mid to late twenties, Rouault underwent a time of personal crisis and emerged as a devout Roman Catholic. It was also during this period that Rouault shifted from academic painting to a style melding Fauvist and Expressionist motifs and techniques. He took an interest in critically exploring the moral and societal flaws of modern life, depicting courts of law and completing multiple painting series of clowns, prostitutes, and other figures. Indeed, three-quarters of the artist's oeuvre focuses on the human form rather than landscape or still life; in the 1930s, Rouault began a series of the Passion of Christ, and during World War II he returned to the subject matter of clowns and self-portraits. Rouault depicted the Christ figure in dozens of varied ways, testing his creativity while meditating upon a holy subject. Some of these paintings are done in the manner of portraiture while others are complex vignettes containing several figures. Christ en croix is painted thickly and richly in Rouault's late palette of vivid yellows and greens. The artist referenced the sacred beauty of medieval stained glass by emphasizing the glowing colors and applying heavy black contouring. The bold, graphic composition is made up of simplified, geometric forms. Extraneous details are cropped out and the viewer is confronted by a vision of the crucified Christ, the stark T-shape starkly dividing the quadrants of the painting. Rouault was one of the most passionate Christian artists of the twentieth century, dedicating numerous paintings to religious subjects not because of paid church commissions but because of his personal convictions. He united religious and secular traditions in his art, bringing together the spiritual, emotional intensity of his faith and avant-garde painting style and philosophy.