"adolphe Félix Cals, Portrait Of A Young Sailor"

Adolphe Félix CALS (1810 Paris - 1880 Honfleur)
Portrait of a young sailor
Oil on canvas.
Signed lower left Cals.
Original giltwood frame, some damage.
Dimensions: H. 32.5 cm, W. 25 cm
Dimensions with frame: H. 47 cm, W. 39.3 cm

Our portrait seems to depict a sailor in the Navy, with his low-cut collar surrounded by a blue halo.
The subject is depicted frontally, his eyes fixed on the distance, in a natural and serene attitude, his lips delicately drawn to outline small dimples in the corners, the tips of his hair browned, as if flattened by the recent pressure of a head covering.
The artist's style, penetrated with gray, seeks to get as close as possible to the intimacy of the model.

It is the art critic Paul Lafond who speaks of it best in an article in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts published in 1898: Cals draws by shadow and light. (…) In his work, the line is always blunted, melted, as if drowned or lost (…) His painting is very simple, gently caressed, very enveloped, even padded (…).

Adolphe Félix CALS (1810 Paris - 1880 Honfleur)

French painter and engraver, portraitist and landscaper, considered by some as the unknown link between Corot and the Impressionists. He is known for his melted and transparent touch capable of restoring the vibrations of light by means of gray tones.  

Of modest origin, endowed with precocious talents, Cals began training early with the Parisian engraver Jean-Louis Ansellin and then passed through various engraving workshops. In 1828, he joined the École des Beaux-Arts in the studio of Léon Coignet. His master was not kind to him, whom he accused of a guilty closeness to Corot. From 1835, he exhibited annually at the official Salon of portraits and landscapes. This was the time when he painted for pleasure on location during walks on the Butte Montmartre or in the surroundings of Paris, sometimes alongside Daubigny.

In 1860, a new period began, less financially difficult when Pierre-Firmin Martin, known as "Father Martin," a famous Parisian art dealer, took him under his wing. He obtained commissions for him and introduced him to Count Doria, his future patron, who welcomed him into his château d'Orrouy. From 1869 to 1870, he painted landscapes, interiors, and portraits, which he sold to the Count's friends.

Although he belonged to a generation before the main protagonists of the Impressionist movement, Cals dared to appear in 1863 at the Salon des Refusés alongside Degas, Monet and Pissarro. He remained a faithful companion since he participated in the majority of Impressionist exhibitions until his death.

It was in Normandy, a region he discovered during his military service in Rouen, that Cals lived his happiest period, that of the joy of painting as described by his biographer Arsène Houssaye. In 1873, he settled permanently with his daughter in Honfleur where he frequented the colony of artists installed at the Saint-Siméon farm, like Boudin and Jongkind who became a close friend.

During the last ten years of his life, he painted the sea, the port, the ordinary people, peasants as well as sailors.