Jean-roger Sourgen (1883–1978) – Grand Landscape Of The Landes With Pines – Oil On Canvas, 125 Cm

Jean-Roger Sourgen (1883–1978) – Exceptional Grand Landscape of the Landes, The Red Heath in September – 125 cm
Signed J. R. Sourgen lower left.

There are paintings that depict the Landes region, and others that seem to have captured its very soul.

This exceptional oil on canvas by Jean-Roger Sourgen, in a spectacular panoramic format measuring 125 cm in length, undoubtedly belongs to the latter category.

Before us lies the heath at the end of summer, when September begins to transform the colors. In the foreground, the reddish moor displays its browns, ochres, and shades of heather and ferns, crossed by the clear waters of a Landes pond.

Then come the pine trees.

Here, Sourgen makes them the true protagonists of his painting. Some are young and frail; others are immense, raising their reddish-brown trunks toward the sky. Their tall silhouettes punctuate the entire composition, while in the distance a second forest—now almost entirely blue due to the effect of distance and light—blends into the horizon.

And then there is that extraordinary sky.

A vast blue-green sky, almost turquoise in places, streaked with large white, mauve, and blue-gray clouds. Sourgen does not merely seek to describe a landscape: through the juxtaposition of colors, the layering of planes, and the extraordinary verticality of the pines, he lends the moor an almost monumental dimension.

The composition is remarkably balanced. The tranquil horizontality of the moor and the water is counterbalanced by the vertical momentum of the tall maritime pines. This contrast lends the entire scene a surprising decorative power and modernity.

But this painting also possesses something that has become rare: it has come down to us in its original condition.

Having been kept all its life in a house in Seignosse, it has, according to information provided by its owner, never been cleaned or restored.

We have deliberately chosen not to intervene.

The canvas is therefore offered exactly as it has come down to us, bearing the traces of its history, its original texture, and a few pictorial gaps that are clearly visible in our photographs. We prefer to leave the decision regarding any potential restoration to its future owner, rather than present a work that has been artificially restored.

This original state of preservation lends the painting a particularly moving authenticity and presence today.

Measuring 125 × 55 cm, with its remarkable panoramic composition, the graphic power of its pine trees, and this admirable harmony of blues, greens, and russet earth tones, this work is a beautiful expression of Jean-Roger Sourgen’s world in the Landes region.

A grand canvas in every sense of the word: not only because of its size, of course, but above all because of the space, light, and silence of the Landes region that it manages to bring into the room where it hangs.

Oil on canvas.
Dimensions: 125 × 55 cm.
Signed J. R. Sourgen lower left.
Provenance: private collection, Seignosse (Landes).
The work is preserved in its original condition and is offered as is.