Maurice Blanchard (1903–1969) - Montmartre - Pastel And Ink

Maurice Blanchard (1903–1969)

Title: Montmartre
Year: 1938
Medium: Mixed media (pastel, ink)
Medium: Paper
Dimensions: 23 × 30 cm for the artwork alone
Signature: signed and dated 1938 in the lower left corner
Movement: Montmartre School / French figurative art
Period: early period

This 1938 mixed-media work belongs to the early period of Maurice Blanchard, prior to the highly colorful and frankly naïve style that would come to characterize his postwar work. Gallery sources describe these two phases in detail: an early style still close to that of the Nabis, followed, after 1945, by a more naive and chromatically vivid style.

The composition depicts a corner of Montmartre, centered around a cluster of simple houses with sloping roofs. Two figures occupy the foreground and immediately lend a human dimension to the scene.

The architecture is rendered with restraint: Blanchard favors simple forms, outlined in dark lines. The vertical lines of the tree trunks strongly structure the space and frame the composition on both the left and right, while the roofs and paths create a sense of progressive depth.

The mixed media technique allows the artist to combine several effects: pen or oil pastel strokes, colored highlights, and denser texture in the foliage. Greens, ochres, and browns dominate, punctuated by a few red and yellow accents that prevent any monotony.

What stands out most is the way Blanchard simplifies reality without making it naive in the strict sense. The houses, trees, and figures remain immediately recognizable, but they are subject to a decorative stylization that brings this work closer to certain Nabi sensibilities: bold outlines, muted flat areas of color, and a deliberately flattened space.

The subject matter is modest, almost everyday, but that is precisely what makes Blanchard’s work so compelling: an intimate vision of working-class landscapes and neighborhoods, more attuned to atmosphere than to topographical accuracy.