Frantz Charlet

FRANTZ CHARLET (Brussels, 1862 - Paris, 1928).
"View of the Seine, 1922.
Oil on canvas.
With framer Charles Van Thienen's label on the back.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 46 x 76 cm; 70,5 x 90 cm (frame).
The oil painting shows a landscape clearly recognisable thanks to the buildings on the other side of the wide river. The chosen treatment relates the work to approaches contributed by certain pictorial avant-gardes born since the end of the 19th century in France, the loose brushstroke and the rich matte use of pigment show that the author of this work knew the precepts of impressionism. The author fixes in the image a specific place at a specific time of the day and is interested in the effect of light. He conceived the image through colour, which dominates the scene over the drawing, leaving the forms without a precise finish and forcing the eye to configure the whole image.
Frantz Charlet was a Belgian painter, engraver and lithographer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is considered one of the most important Impressionists of the New Belgian School. He was the brother of the painter Emile Charlet (1851-1910) and was also related to the painter Emile Wauters. Frantz Charlet was a pupil at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels from 1872 to 1873 and from 1876 to 1881. His main teacher was Jean Portaels. Among his fellow pupils were Eugène Broerman, François-Joseph Halkett, Théo Van Rysselberghe and Rodolphe Wytsman. He then trained in Paris with renowned artists such as Jean-Léon Gérôme, Jules Joseph Lefebvre and Emile Carolus-Duran at the École des Beaux Arts. In Brussels, Charlet was part of the artists' group "L'Essor". Charlet was an avid traveller. Together with Théo Van Rysselberghe, Constantin Meunier and Dario de Regoyos, he made a study trip to Spain (late 1882 - spring 1883). After visiting the Prado in Madrid, they travelled to Seville, where they met Constantin Meunier, who was working there on a copy of a Descent from the Cross. Alfred Cluysenaer joined the small group and together they travelled to Tangiers and then to Morocco. They left Africa at the end of February 1883 (as a letter from Charlet to Guillaume Van Strydonck shows). In the summer of 1883, again with Théo Van Rysselberghe, he went to Haarlem, where they studied works by Frans Hals. He also stayed at the artists' colony in Knokke, together with Van Rysselberghe, De Regoyos and other artist friends such as Willy Schlobach, Willy Finch and Rodolphe Wytsman. In 1883, together with Théo Van Rysselberghe and Willy Schlobach, he was behind the secession of "L'Essor", which led to the creation of "Les XX" in the same year. However, he did not exhibit in the first exhibition of this artists' collective because, together with Van Rysselberghe, he had gone back to Tangiers, detouring to Italy. With James McNeill Whistler, he visited Volendam and the island of Marken in 1885. He also visited - then fashionable - Zealand, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Algeria. In 1906, he founded the "Société Internationale de la peinture à eau" with Fernand Khnopff, Henry Stacquet and Henri Cassiers. Charlet, a supporter of France, eventually settled there. He exhibited there on several occasions, including one-man shows (at the Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, in 1906 and 1908). In Paris, he revealed himself as a virtuoso chronicler of fashionable life in the city and at the racecourse. Charlet painted landscapes, seascapes, urban scenes, genre scenes and portraits. At first he worked realistically, following the style of Bastien-Lepage. He soon adopted a lighter palette and a freer touch. This was obvious to him, given his numerous contacts in Paris (including Paul Signac). Georges Seurat's theoretical pointillism only briefly captivated him. Charlet focused rather on a free impressionism, with loose and tremulous touches, with great attention to light and reflections.