Louis-marie Désiré-lucas (1869-1949) Sketch Of Rocks At Low Tide - Tribute To Victor Hugo

Louis-Marie DÉSIRÉ-LUCAS
(Fort-de-France 1869 - Douarnenez 1949)
Esquisse of rocks at marrée basse - Hommage to Victor Hugo?
Oil and graphite on brown paper
H. 13 cm; L. 13 cm
Signed lower left

Born in Fort-de-France, Louis-Marie Désiré-Lucas father, a commissioner in the French Navy, and a mother of mother of Creole origin. The family moved to Brest in 1871, where he grew up, showing an early interest in drawing and for drawing and painting. In 1889, he moved to Paris, where he studied at the Académie Julian, then at the École des Beaux-Arts, in the Bouguereau, Robert-Fleury and Jules Joseph Lefebvre workshop. He exhibited for the first time at the Salon des artistes français in 1893, signing his works "Lucas D.".

Following the rejection of his painting Ave Maria in 1896, Désiré-Lucas gradually moved away from strictac ademism and turned to genre and landscape painting. Encouraged to leave Paris, he settled in Brittany, first in Vannes from 1897, where he painted scenes of Breton daily lifeBreton daily life, imbued with realism and attention to light.light.

His career quickly gained recognitionbronze medal at the Universal Exhibition of1900, followed by a travel grant in 1901. That same year, the French governmentacquired LeBénédicité,emblematic of his attachment to intimate and family scenes.scenes.

In 1907, Désiré-Lucas moved to PloaréPloaré, near Douarnenez, in the Kerbervet manor house, which heinto a farm-workshop. Deeply attached to Brittany,he developed a body of work marked by maritime landscapes, peasantand a constant search for light. Mobilizedduring the First World War, he subsequently resumed his careerwith a progressively lighter and freer palette. A greattraveler, he also painted on the Côte d'Azur, in Spain, in ItalyItaly and Belle-Île-en-Mer, enriching his work with Mediterraneaninfluences and increased luminosity. A prolific artist,he regularly exhibits in France and abroad, and takes part in major official Salons.official Salons.

Elected member of the Académiedes Beaux-Arts in 1943, Désiré-Lucas became a major figuremajor figure in French painting in the first half of the 20th^e century.century in the wake of Impressionism.

This small oil on pencil is a UFO in the painter's visible artistic career. Nor is it a very personal work, since it is signed, but it's enough to make one unaware of a seriesa series in the same spirit. The stylistic with Victor Hugo's ink washes, where the silhouettes of ruined Hugo's ink washes, where silhouettes of medieval ruins stand out against shady skies. In Désiré-Lucas's work, the rocks of the Breton coast rocks of the Breton coast he painted so often, presented he represented here, isolated, in this small square format.