Soleil Levant – Plaine de Courtry – 1909
by Moise Arnaud

Moïse Arnaud was a french landscape and portrait painter who was born in 1881 and was often remarked on in the press of his day. The “Mercure de France”, carried an article voicing appreciating for his artistic talent, which it calls “très nuancé et précis”. Little is known about Arnaud's life but Benezit points out that Arnaud was a member of the Société des Artistes Indépendants, an association founded on the principle of abolishing the juries that admitted artists’ work to exhibitions in order to allow the artists themselves to submit their work freely and directly to the judgment of the general public, a wish which appears to underpin every one of the artist’s paintings. He himself described his work as “n’appartenant en vérité à aucune des écoles qui s’efforcent, par ces temps de bluff et de réclame, d’attirer l’attention du public” .

Arnauds work is fairly close to that of Paul Serusier and his landscape painting. Thus it was no mere coincidence that, as early as in 1919, he found himself showing alongside Paul Signac and Édouard Fer (the author of Principes scientifiques du néo-impressionisme) at an exhibition of modern French painting held at the Galerie Du Rhône in Geneva, together with artists who earned the esteem of Léon Durand: “enthousiastes resteront pour avoir dégagé la peinture des formules surannées sans tomber dans les abstractions ultra-modernistes de ceux qui nous semblent encore en dehors du domaine plastique de l’art!”

More research is required on Arnaud as his work is extremely striking and unique. Records show he died around 1920 - the cause of death unrecorded - marking a brief career which explains why his output was very limited and few of his paintings appear on the market.