Clovis Cazes Naiad In Antique Style Mediterranean Landscape Scene Oil On Canvas Circa 1900

Antique scene signed Clovis Cazes. Six women bathing in a Mediterranean setting reminiscent of mythological scenes. Fauvis palette by the Gers artist who died prematurely in 1918. Presence of a stamp on the back of the frame indicating the former belonging of the work to a collection: "la pinacoteca barcelona". The canvas is stretched and also framed. Clovis Cazes (1883-1918) was a painter born in Lannepax of Gascon origin. Coming from a modest family in Gers, he obtained a scholarship at the age of seventeen to study at the École supérieure des beaux-arts de Toulouse, before entering the École des beaux-arts de Paris in 1904. There he was a student of the prestigious Fernand Cormon, Carolus Duran, Jean-Paul Laurens and Jean-Jacques Henner - these artists each had a certain notoriety among Parisian circles. He thus benefited from a relatively classical training oriented towards the subjects of history, mythology as well as portraits. He remained open to the modernity of the beginning of the century which was fully expressed in Paris, marked by the exploration of color and the avant-garde modification of the standards of pictorial representation. Appointed official painter of the Navy in 1914, his career was widely acclaimed by critics since he received numerous prizes during his training and in 1909 won a one-year scholarship to study in Italy, from which he brought back some works. He also frequented other artists from the Southwest, such as the Landes Alex Lizal and Jean-Roger Sourgen. During the First World War, he was quickly discharged for medical reasons and was sent to Spain as an attaché at the consulate of Valencia. He remained there until his death from the Spanish flu in 1918. His work is influenced by the folkloric figures of Spain, of which he painted many portraits of Andalusian women. The Iberian character of these characters, like Goya's chimeras and these souls brought to life in painting, does not obscure a diversity of subjects treated despite the brevity of his career. Clovis Cazes offers a strong painting of historical and mythological subjects, sometimes landscapes of travels in Europe, including impasto of material and a false clumsiness of representation to develop a singular art, profoundly pictorial and human.