3 same subjects by Le Sidaner

gerard van weyenbergh
Jun 2
2 min read

3 same subjects by Le Sidaner 1862-1939

In La table sur la cour, the artist has set up a simple table—three roses in a vase, three apples on a plate and one on the table, three jugs, and a glass—in front of an open window, overlooking the interior courtyard, offering a glimpse of the outdoors from this domestic setting. While the canvas feels fully occupied by this amalgamation of interior objects and external walls, Le Sidaner subtly plays with the colors and their intensity to create deep recession in an otherwise convoluted space. Indeed, the table and its occupants are executed in rich jeweled tones, vibrant and deep; meanwhile the window and all the outdoor structures are executed in muted pastels of purples, greens and soft pinks.

Sold Christie's $1.2 M in 2024

La table sur la cour

signed 'LE SIDANER' (lower left)

oil on canvas

39 3⁄8 x 32 in. (100 x 81.2 cm.)

Painted in Gerberoy in summer 1926

When Le Sidaner returned to Paris in 1894, the city was in thrall to the spirit of Symbolism, thanks to artists such as Maurice Denis and Pierre Bonnard. The young Le Sidaner, who had previously studied in the academic atelier of Alexandre Cabanel, began to eschew naturalism in favor of the poetic. His body of work can be seen as combining a Symbolist mood of reverie with the Post-Impressionist technique of divisionism. At the same time across the Atlantic, James McNeil Whistler was composing symphonies in white and harmonies in green and gold, arranging women rather than table settings to achieve certain desired effects of color and light. Though executed three decades after these turn-of-the-century influences, the present canvas possesses a poetic tonality that attests to Le Sidaner's earlier association with the Symbolist movement.

Sold Christie's $ 1M in 2008

La table, harmonie rouge

signed 'LE SIDANER' (lower left)

oil on canvas

36¼ x 28¾ in. (92.1 x 73 cm.)

Painted in 1927

At the beginning of 1927, he painted a series of eight canvases, La Table, based on eight different colour harmonies which were exhibited with Galerie Georges Petit later that year. The exhibition was a great success, the artistic director of a leading art newspaper wrote rather poetically of them: ‘Here is Harmonie Jaune with shades of yellow flowers, the skin bitten with fruit, jewels and rays reminiscent of the splendours of the summer, since the dawn of the morning before, and Phebus sifting the earth of arrows of gold, until sunset to the vast purple clouds.’ (M. Fueillet, ‘Henri Le Sidaner, Pientre du silence’, in Le Gaulois Artistique, Paris, November 13, 1927.)