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Gaston Balande

( 1880 – 1971 )

“A river landscape”

Medium	Oil on canvas
Signed	Signed lower right
Size	21.50" × 29.00" (54.6cm × 73.7cm)
Framed Size	27.00" × 34.50" (68.6cm × 87.6cm)
Dated	c. 1930
Condition	Very good condition
Provenance	Exposition Gaston Balande - Strasbourg (labels verso)

Summary

A great river seen from height — the water winding through a wide valley, the village on its bank small and unhurried in the middle distance, the hills dissolving into pale blue haze at the horizon. Gaston Balande (1880–1971) painted this kind of elevated, expansive view with complete authority, and the colour tells you everything about where he was in his practice by around 1930. The palette is cool and clear — the river a pale silvery blue, the fields around it varying between warm ochre and soft green, the trees rendered in deep blue-greens that give the middle distance its structure and depth. The handling is confident and deliberate: broad planes of colour that simplify the landscape into its essential forms without losing the specific quality of light on a French river valley on a hazy summer day. The sky — almost white at the top, barely distinguishable from the horizon — is painted with the most restraint, allowing the landscape to carry all the tonal weight. It is a composition of considerable spatial intelligence, organised around the S-curve of the river that draws the eye from the foreground all the way to the distant hills. Balande's critics compared his work to a mélange of Manet, Cézanne and Puvis de Chavannes — and in a landscape of this quality one can see exactly why. The structural clarity of the composition owes something to Cézanne; the cool, slightly detached observation of the countryside recalls Puvis; the directness and confidence of the paint application is Manet's lesson absorbed completely. Largely self-taught as a painter — he began his career as a picture restorer — Balande studied under Fernand Cormon and Rupert Bunny before establishing himself as one of the most respected landscape painters working between the wars. He was made a Knight of the Légion d'Honneur in 1925 and an Officer in 1952. His work is held in the Musée d'Orsay, the Centre Pompidou and the Musée des Beaux-Arts in La Rochelle.

£5,750.00

GBP

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“A river landscape”

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Gaston Balande

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“A river landscape”

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Gaston Balande

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