Paul Pascal

PAUL PASCAL (France, 1839-1905).
"Dance at sunset". 1894
Gouache on paper.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Important painting in the artist's oeuvre because of its size, since Pascal usually worked in small format.
Measurements: 42 x 58 cm; 62 x 78 cm (frame).

In this delicate gouache, Paul Pascal recreates an orientalist scene impregnated with exoticism and refined sensuality. In the center, an oriental dancer stands with dancing grace, holding a tambourine while her light tunic and translucent gauze float around her body, catching the golden light of twilight. At her feet, on rich Persian carpets, are the musicians, seated and concentrating on the rhythm of their flutes and tambourines, forming an intimate and harmonious circle.

The scene takes place in the open air, on a monumental stepped stone esplanade, which confers architectural solemnity to the group. Beyond, the landscape opens up to a city with an oriental profile and, on the horizon, the beach and the sea can be seen, reflecting the warm tones of the sunset sky. Pascal masterfully combines shades of gold, mauve and pale blue, achieving a vaporous atmosphere.

The whole expresses the fascinating dialogue between music, dance and landscape, so typical of fin de siècle orientalism: an idealized, poetic and sensual world where the artist seeks the charm of the distant and the timeless.

Paul Pascal was a French landscape painter. He painted landscapes of the Near East and the Mediterranean coast with gouache. After emigrating to the United States in 1893, he painted pictures of American nature with Native Americans. His works are exhibited in museums in France. A. Pascal was born in 1839 in Toulouse, France. His family were cabinetmakers. He grew up in North America, but returned to France, where he graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He began his career as a painter in Toulouse in the 1870s. In the 1880s he moved to Paris, where he became a landscape painter. A. Pascal painted mainly landscapes of the Near East, but also of Italy, the Mediterranean coast and the Pyrenees. He painted only with gouache. A. Pascal emigrated to the United States in 1893. He continued to paint landscapes, some of them of American Indians. Pascal's paintings are exhibited at the Paul Dupuy Museum in Toulouse, the Museum of Art and History in Narbonne and the Museum of Fine Arts in Agen, in southwestern France.