Victor-Ferdinand Bourgeois (August 1, 1870 in

Amiens Amiens (English: or ; ; pcd, Anmien, or ) is a city and commune in northern France, located north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in the region of Hauts-de-France. In 2021, the population of ...

– October 6, 1957 in

Dieulefit Dieulefit (; ''Dieulofé'', from Old Occitan ''Dieu lo fe'' "God made it") is a commune in the Drôme department in southeastern France. Population See also *Communes of the Drôme department The following is a list of the 363 communes of the ...

) was a French

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

and

illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicat ...

Life and career

From Amiens to Paris

Victor-Ferdinand Bourgeois, born in Amiens on 1 August 1870,1 studied at the École Régionale des Beaux-Arts de la Somme and at the Arts Décoratifs in Paris, where he won major prizes. Assessed as hors-concours in 1892, he was appointed to the art directorship of the

Manufacture nationale de Sèvres The ''Manufacture nationale de Sèvres'' is one of the principal European porcelain factories. It is located in Sèvres, Hauts-de-Seine, France. It is the continuation of Vincennes porcelain, founded in 1740, which moved to Sèvres in 1756. It ...

and joined the studio of

Luc-Olivier Merson Luc-Olivier Merson (21 May 1846 – 13 November 1920) was a French academic painter and illustrator also known for his postage stamp and currency designs. Biography Born Nicolas Luc-Olivier Merson in Paris, France, he grew up in an artist ...

, who had just been elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts. In the 1894 École des Beaux-Arts competition Bourgeois came first of four hundred students and in 1897 won the Prix Chenavard, enabling him to participate in the Salon des Artistes Français the following year. Here he exhibited ''La ville d’Amiens recevant les hommages de ses industries''. The canvas was immediately acquired by the French government for Amiens Town Hall; this was his first and last public commission, a vast allegorical composition conforming to the iconography and style widely employed in public monuments of the Third Republic. Exhibited at the 1900 Exposition Internationale, it was awarded a bronze medal.

Naturalist painter and ''peintre de Salon''

In the 1901 Salon Bourgeois exhibited ''Dur labeur''. This imposing canvas of peat diggers is in the naturalist style popularised since the 1870s by

Léon Augustin Lhermitte Léon Augustin Lhermitte (31 July 1844, Mont-Saint-Père – 28 July 1925, Paris) was a French naturalist painter and etcher whose primary subject matter was rural scenes depicting peasants at work. Life and work He was a student of Lec ...

and

Jules Bastien-Lepage Jules Bastien-Lepage (1 November 1848 – 10 December 1884) was a French painter closely associated with the beginning of naturalism, an artistic style that emerged from the later phase of the Realist movement. His most famous work is his lan ...

. He continued in this vein with his ''Portrait du père de l’artiste en ouvrier'', and his most ambitious realist work, the triptych ''Chez les Chouans'', representing the universal themes of youth, family and old age. This portrayal of the peasant world, a representation of the working environment of the farmyard, is a clear departure from the tradition of historical painting.

Stay in Etaples

An admirer of

Jules Breton Jules Adolphe Aimé Louis Breton (1 May 1827 – 5 July 1906) was a 19th-century French naturalist painter. His paintings are heavily influenced by the French countryside and his absorption of traditional methods of painting helped make Jules ...

, Bourgeois was also interested in the world of the sea. He visited

Étaples Étaples or Étaples-sur-Mer (; vls, Stapel, lang; pcd, Étape) is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. It is a fishing and leisure port on the Canche river. History Étaples takes its name from having been a medieval ...

several times, where the port’s hustle and bustle offered him lively subjects, illustrated by canvases such as ''L’Arrivée du poisson'' and ''Retour des pêcheuses de crevettes'', exhibited respectively at the 1907 and 1908 Salons. Four years later

Gaston Balande Gaston Balande (born 1880 in Madrid, died 1971 in Paris), was a French painter and illustrator . Biography Gaston Balande learnt to draw by copying the prints and chromolithographs he saw on the market stalls at Saujon where he lived. He cle ...

was to paint an analogous subject, confirming the attraction of Étaples for naturalist painters.

Trip to Switzerland

His research into light found new expression in the technique of pastel. He first experimented with this new medium during a trip to Switzerland in the autumn of 1908 where, working outdoors, he produced a radiant series of pastels exhibited in February of the following year at the Galerie

Georges Petit Georges Petit (11 March 1856 – 12 May 1920) was a French art dealer, a key figure in the Paris art world and an important promoter and cultivator of Impressionist artists. Early career Petit was the son of François Petit, who founded the f ...

in Paris.19 The French government immediately acquired ''Lac Léman'' (''

Lake Geneva , image = Lake Geneva by Sentinel-2.jpg , caption = Satellite image , image_bathymetry = , caption_bathymetry = , location = Switzerland, France , coords = , lake_type = Glacial lak ...

''), a majestic and iconic scene depicted in a number of different versions, all concentrating on the shimmering expanse of water. From the village of

Chexbres Chexbres ( ) is a municipality in the Swiss canton of Vaud, located in the district of Lavaux-Oron. Chexbres is a wine-growing village and enjoys a good selection of local vintages. It also enjoys notable views of Lake Geneva, and therefore is n ...

, with its fine views of the lake, Bourgeois drew the snow-capped peaks of the Alps and the tops of russet trees standing out sharply against the clear azure of the sky. His supreme mastery of pastel technique is further demonstrated by another fine work, his Sallance waterfall, drawn upstream from the lake itself.

With Armand Guillaumin in the Estérel

Armand Guillaumin Armand Guillaumin (; February 16, 1841 – June 26, 1927) was a French impressionist painter and lithographer. Biography Early years Born Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin in Paris, he worked at his uncle's lingerie shop while attending eveni ...

invited Bourgeois to join him in southern France in the spring of 1911. Together they explored the

French Riviera The French Riviera (known in French as the ; oc, Còsta d'Azur ; literal translation " Azure Coast") is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend fro ...

. Between the Bay of Agay and Le Trayas the bright red rocks, illuminated by the intense blue of the sea and the incomparable southern light, offered the two artists an exceptional panoramic subject and a chromatic impact that was utterly overwhelming for Bourgeois, as it had been for Guillaumin during his first visit in 1885. The red rocks’ fiery display set alight the palette of this artist from Picardie in northern France. Bourgeois turned out many luminous rough drawings and sketches directly from nature there, later transformed into incandescent paintings and pastels.24 With their Fauvist touches, these works constituted a point of no return. Bourgeois had finally discovered the way forward. From that moment on he painted nature with the same eyes as Guillaumin, and, thanks to his colleague, tapped into the sensibility of

Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...

Sisley Alfred Sisley (; ; 30 October 1839 – 29 January 1899) was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedicatio ...

Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetism, Synthetist style that were d ...

and

Othon Friesz Achille-Émile Othon Friesz (6 February 1879 – 10 January 1949), who later called himself Othon Friesz, a native of Le Havre, was a French artist of the Fauvist movement. Biography Othon Friesz was born in Le Havre, the son of a long line of s ...

, who all loved and celebrated light.

Dieulefit

After the loss of his second wife, Bourgeois married Jeanne Marthe Bertrand on 19 March 1928 and they moved together to

where she was born. Subsequently, he rarely left his Provençal retreat. One such retrospective was the 1926 ''Cinquantenaire de la Fondation des Prix du Salon et Bourses de Voyages'' (the 50th anniversary show commemorating this important institution) as well as the retrospective at the 1929 ''Salon d'Automne'' and another at the 1945 ''Salon d’Hiver'', while in 1938 ''Le départ du bateau grec'' was selected by the ''Société Lyonnaise des Beaux-Arts'' to add lustre to its Salon. But apart from these rare appearances, none of his faithful friends, such as

Paul Chabas Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) *Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chris ...

Georges Rouault Georges Henri Rouault (; 27 May 1871, Paris – 13 February 1958) was a French painter, draughtsman and print artist, whose work is often associated with Fauvism and Expressionism. Childhood and education Rouault was born in Paris into a po ...

and of course Guillaumin, managed to draw him away from the solitude of his studio in the Dauphiné. Yet Bourgeois continued to paint, pursuing to his dying day an obsessive quest for light and transparency, as his landscapes of Drôme and the Dauphiné clearly show. A solitary personality but a talent fully acknowledged by critics and cherished by art lovers, Victor-Ferdinand Bourgeois died at Dieulefit on 6 October 1957.

Works in public institutions

*''La ville d’Amiens recevant les hommages de ses industriels'', 1897. Town Hall, Amiens *''Chez les Chouans'', 1902. Musée de Picardie, Amiens *''Lac Léman'', 1908. Musée de Picardie, Amiens

Exhibitions

(non-exhaustive list) * ''Exposition de pastels par Victor Bourgeois'' - 16–28 February 1909, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris * ''Victor F. Bourgeois, Peintures & Pastels'' - 30 November – 31 December 1945, Salon d’Hiver, Palais de Tokyo, Paris * ''French Naturalist Painters 1890-1950'' - 12 June - 7 July 2012, The Fleming Collection, London

References

* G.-M. Faure, ''Victor F. Bourgeois, Peintures & Pastels'', Salon d’Hiver 1945, Palais de Tokio (sic), Paris, 30 November–31 December 1945, Paris: 1945. * ''Exposition de pastels par Victor Bourgeois'', exhibition catalogue, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 16–28 February 1909, Paris: Galerie Georges Petit, 1909. * ''Exposition d’un groupe de prix du Salon et boursiers de voyage'', exhibition catalogue, Galerie Berthe Weill, Paris, 30 May–15 June 1921, Paris: Galerie Berthe Weill, 1921.

External links

French Naturalist Painters 1890-1950 exhibition
- 29 January - 16 February 2013, Galerie de l'Association des Amis de Gustave de Beaumont, Geneva {{DEFAULTSORT:Bourgeois, Victor-Ferdinand 19th-century French painters 19th-century French male artists French male painters 20th-century French painters 20th-century French male artists 1870 births 1957 deaths Modern painters People from Amiens