Madeline – The Sedelle near Crozant, reverse: A Faun with Three Graces in an Arcadian Landscape

Paul Madeline

(1863 Paris – 1920 Paare)

THE SEDELLE NEAR CROZANT
reverse: A FAUN WITH THREE GRACES IN AN ARCADIAN LANDSCAPE

Oil on canvas
64 x 65 cm
Signed lower left: P. Madeline

Paul Madeline grew up in Paris, studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, and was particularly enthusiastic about plein air landscape painting and Impressionism. His artistic breakthrough came in 1894 through his acquaintance with Maurice Rollinat and Léon Detroy, both painters at the École de Crozant. Madeline fell in love with the charming river landscape between the Creuse and the Sedelle and from then on spent several months painting in Crozant every autumn. With his harmonious paintings in a green-blue-violet palette, he became, alongside Guillaumin, one of the most important painters of the Creuse region. In this particular painting, he added a vibrant pink hue to his typical violet-green duality for the heather. While the river landscape with its small weir and flowering slopes is easily identifiable, the Arcadian scene on the other side of the painting, with its flute-playing faun and three dancing Graces, is clearly of a more distant origin. Equally beautiful in color and bathed in light, it has a dreamlike and enchanting quality.

Madeline exhibited regularly at the Salon des Artistes Français and the Salon d’Automne and was represented by the Galerie Durand-Ruel. In 1926, the Salon des Indépendants honored him with a retrospective. Madeline’s works are held in numerous French museums.