The Reputation of Maurice Brianchon
"Life is a warfare and a stranger’s sojourn, and after fame is oblivion."
Here is a biography I would be proud of, were it mine.
Maurice Brianchon was a French painter known as one of the Peintres de la Réalite Poétique, or Painters of Poetic Reality. An ardent advocate of the figurative and a colourist at heart, Brianchon is often associated with the Intimism of Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard. The artist also adhered to the principles of decorative art, which he adopted during his time at the École des Arts Décoratifs, where he studied under Eugène Morand and befriended Legeuelt and Desnoyer.
At the age of 23, he was appointed a member of the committee of the Salon d’Automne and, in 1934, represented France at the Venice Biennale and won the Carnegie Prize. Thereafter, followed a period of fame and success, which included designing of sets and productions at the Paris Opera. In 1946, he was awarded the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and in 1949, he was appointed professor of painting at his alma mater. He was also the subject of a major retrospective at the Louvre in 1951, and the following year, was selected as one of the official artists of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of England.
It accompanies the weekly missive from the British gallery Browse & Darby, regarding a lovely Brianchon in its possession. Part with a mere £15,000 and it will come into yours.
I am intellectually enmeshed in 20th-century Western painting. Certainly I know the Intimists. I have even seen a few Denoyers. But this fellow who had a retrospective at the Louvre? I have never heard of him. The same goes for the group of Peintres de la Réalite Poétique. Here is something about them, in French, which I can barely read. As of this writing Brianchon doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. (Go forth, Francophones, and have at it.)
Punch his name into the search engine of your choice. You will find one handsome work after another.
Sure, there’s some Bonnard and Vuillard in there, and a touch of Matisse as well. There’s also something a bit Avery-ish about them, especially the landscape. American influence upon Brianchon would not be wholly impossible. As New York City painter Dana Gordon has uncovered, Hans Hofmann, after assimilating key works by Nicolas de Staël, exhibited in Paris in 1949. In any case, Brianchon clearly understood a few things about abstraction subsequent to Matisse.
What of Brianchon’s reputation? Consider that even an exhibition of your life’s work at the Louvre, or some equal glory, will soon become trivia. The subtitle of this post is from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Marcus made a habit of reminding himself that his standing in the world, for better or worse, could be upended at any moment, and would be upended sooner or later. Therefore one may as well stay one’s anger and do right by the spirit. If the mighty Marcus needed such discipline, how much more must I.
Wonderful things await our discovery in the periphery, of the arts and of ourselves.