René Seyssaud (1867 - 1952) — Mountainous Landscape

Mountain Landscape
Oil on cardboard, signed lower left.
39 x 62 cm.

Seyssaud, the landscape painter of living forces

It was under the tutelage of the Avignon master Pierre Grivolas, rather than at the Marseille School of Fine Arts where he had studied under Dominique Magaud from the age of thirteen, that the young man's artistic personality took shape. While he drew his inspiration from his Provençal roots, he nevertheless distanced himself quite early from the representation of local customs and traditions favored by his master, anchoring his work in the land itself. He would become a landscape painter. From 1885, he participated in the Salon des Indépendants, and it was Le Barc de Boutteville who first dedicated a solo exhibition to him in his Parisian gallery in 1897. Two years later, Seyssaud enjoyed the favor of Ambroise Vollard, and his solo exhibition was a success with art lovers. An exhibition at the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in 1901 crowned this Parisian trilogy. Seyssaud also began a sustained collaboration with the cabinetmaker and decorator Eugène Printz. However, these forays into the capital's galleries were not to continue, as Seyssaud remained loyal to François Honnorat, a Marseilles merchant with whom he partnered in order to permanently improve his financial situation. Suffering from fragile lung health, the urban environment made the painter uncomfortable, and it was as much out of necessity as by choice that he settled in the countryside, on an isolated farm. There he married a peasant woman from the Vaucluse region. Living with her and her family in Villes-sur-Auzon (Vaucluse) and Saint-Chamas (Bouches-du-Rhône), he deepened his understanding of the peasant condition, the agricultural calendar, and its hardships. Seyssaud's work is deeply connected to nature in its vastness and fullness: the earth, the sky, all that they support and encompass, including humankind, since we too are its product. In his rural compositions, the power of color echoes the forces at play, those of nature and the seasons; people are one with the land from which they draw the resources they need through their labor. In February 2015, the first monograph on the artist, written by Claude-Jeanne Bonnici, was published, fulfilling the expectations of a growing number of art lovers captivated by the power of his paintings and eager for a study of this scope to finally be dedicated to him.

Discover more of this artist's work on the gallery's website: https://www.galeriepentcheff.fr/fr/peintre-rene-seyssaud#Oeuvres