Philippe Debiesse (?-1907) - "on The Ruins Of Thierry's Castle"

Oil on canvas. Original canvas. Inscription near the signature, with an autograph note on the back dedicated to the sculptor Albert Laplanche. This landscape, painted by Philippe Debiesse, brilliantly demonstrates the assimilation of Impressionist aesthetics in Picardy at the end of the 19th century. The artist from Saint-Quentin employs a technique of broad brushstrokes that fragment the light to capture the changing atmosphere of a spring morning in the Aisne region. The composition highlights the massive and imposing volumes of the ramparts of Château-Thierry, whose medieval ruins, freed from their historical weight, become receptacles of color. Debiesse employs a palette dominated by deep blues and fresh greens, where the shadows are not black, but rather chromatic nuances that lend the stone an almost organic vitality, integrating defensive architecture with the awakening of nature. The work acquires an additional historical and emotional dimension through its dedication to the sculptor Albert Laplanche, a major figure in the region's cultural life and former curator of the municipal museum. This dedication underscores the network of artistic camaraderie that united painters and sculptors in northern France, sharing an aesthetic vision where form merges with the air. On this canvas, Thierry's castle ceases to be a ruined fortress and is transformed into a theater of pure light, where the energetic brushstrokes of Debiesse – who would die prematurely in 1907 – seem to suspend time before modernity definitively disrupts the horizons of traditional Picardy.- Dimensions of the image without frame: 46 x 38 cm / 57 x 49.5 cm with exclusive custom frame.