Le déjeuner à Bourgueil, circa 1893
Oil on canvas
49.5 x 35.5 in.
Le déjeuner à Bourgueil illustrates the artist's two passions: equestrian art and painting. His love of horses came from his mother, whose family were horse merchants; he was already riding by the age of four. Anquetin's artistic career began to take shape with his 1882 arrival in Paris, whereupon he joined the ateliers of Léon Bonnat and subsequently that of Fernand Cormon. Here he forged friendships with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent van Gogh and Emile Bernard, with whom he would elaborate the tenets of Synthetism, wherin the theme, treated with flat brush strokes, is delimited by a black or coloured line, stressing the clearness of the subject and strengthening its chromatic brightness. Thanks to Anquetin and Bernard, this style would have a significant influence on contemporary avant-garde artistic developments.
A preparatory study allows us to identify all the figures present: Jean Moréas is on horseback, with Charles Conder to his right and the artist next to him, his back turned to the viewer; René Bourges plays the guitar. Executed in 1893, synthetist elements still remain, while the Rubenesque style Anquetin would develop in his works post-1900 is already beginning to take form.
Le déjeuner à Bourgueil is not without a certain reference to Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe, which shocked the public and the critics with its "indecency" at the 1863 Salon des Refusés. As in Manet's composition, Anquetin's Déjeuner is also divided between dream and reality, with only René Bourges at center seemingly conscious of the female presence at right.
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