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Maximilien Luce

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Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox artist

File:Portrait de l'artiste, Maximilien Luce.jpg
Self-portrait, c. 1925–1930

Maximilien Luce ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}; 13 March 1858 – 6 February 1941) was a French Neo-impressionist artist, known for his paintings, graphic art and his anarchist activism. Starting as a wood-engraver, he subsequently concentrated on painting, first as an Impressionist, then as a Pointillist and finally returning to Impressionism.

Early life and educationEdit

File:The Artist's Room, rue Lavin, Maximilien Luce.jpg
The Artist's Room, rue Lavin, 1878

Maximilien-Jules-Constant Luce was born on 13 March 1858 in Paris. His parents, of modest means, were Charles-Désiré Luce (1823–1888), a railway clerk, and Louise-Joséphine Dunas (1822–1878). The family lived in the Montparnasse, a working-class district of Paris. Luce attended school at l'Ecole communale, beginning in 1864.<ref name="cle323"/><ref name="cle325"/>

In 1872, the fourteen-year-old Luce became an apprentice with wood-engraver Henri Théophile Hildebrand (1824–1897). During his three-year xylography apprenticeship, he also took night classes in drawing from instructors Truffet and Jules-Ernest Paris (1827–1895). During this period, Luce started painting in oils. He moved with his family to the southern Paris suburb of Montrouge. His art education continued as he attended drawing classes taught by Diogène Maillard (1840–1926) at the Gobelins tapestry factory.<ref name="cle325"/>

Luce began working in the studio of Template:Ill (1844–1900) in 1876, producing wood-engravings for various publications, including L'Illustration and London's The Graphic. He took additional art courses, at l'Académie Suisse, and also in the studio of portrait painter Carolus-Duran (1837–1917). Through Froment's studio, Luce became friends with Léo Gausson and Émile-Gustave Cavallo-Péduzzi. These three artists spent time around Lagny-sur-Marne creating Impressionist landscapes.<ref name="cle323"/>

WorkEdit

File:Morning, Interior - Luce.jpeg
Morning, Interior. The painting represents a close friend and a fellow Neo-Impressionist Gustave Perrot.
File:Maximilien Luce - The port of Saint-Tropez (Le Port de Saint-Tropez) 1893.jpg
The port of Saint-Tropez, 1893

Luce spent four years in the military, starting in 1879, serving in Brittany at Guingamp. The next year, he received a promotion to corporal, and he became friends with Alexandre Millerand, who, in 1920, assumed the office of President of France. In 1881 he requested the restoration of his lower rank of soldier, second class. Carolus-Duran used his influence to get a transfer for Luce to Paris barracks. His stint in the military came to a close in 1883.<ref name="cle326"/>

The prevalence of the new zincography printing process rendered xylography nearly obsolete as a profession.<ref name="cle323"/> When the opportunities for employment as an engraver became scarce, Luce shifted his focus to painting full-time in about 1883.<ref name="cle326"/>

Gausson and Cavallo-Péduzzi introduced Luce in about 1884 to the Divisionist technique developed by Georges Seurat. This influenced Luce to begin painting in the Pointillist style.<ref name="cle327"/> In contrast to Seurat's detached manner, Luce's paintings were passionate portrayals of contemporary subjects, depicting the "violent effects of light".<ref name="ors"/> He moved to Montmartre in 1887. Luce joined the Société des Artistes Indépendants and participated in their third spring exhibition, where Paul Signac purchased one of his pieces, La Toilette. Camille Pissarro and critic Félix Fénéon were also impressed by the seven Luce works displayed in the show.<ref name="cle327"/> Fénéon characterized Luce as a "coarse, honest man, with a rough and muscular talent."<ref name="glu"/> In addition to Pissarro and Signac, he met many of the other Neo-impressionists, including Seurat, Henri-Edmond Cross, Charles Angrand, Armand Guillaumin, Hippolyte Petitjean, Albert Dubois-Pillet, and Pissarro's son Lucien.<ref name="cle327"/> A New York Times critic declared this Pointillist period to be the pinnacle of Luce's artistic career, singling out the radiant 1895 painting On the Bank of the Seine at Poissy as an example. He described the skillfully executed painting as "a lyrical celebration of nature."<ref name="glu"/>

File:Maximilien Luce - Le bon samaritain.jpg
Le bon samaritain, 1896

With the exception of the years 1915 to 1919, Luce exhibited in every show at Les Indépendants from 1887 until he died in 1941,<ref name="cle327"/> including a thirty-year retrospective held in 1926.<ref name="cle331"/> In 1909, he was elected vice president of the Société des Artistes Indépendants,<ref name="cle330"/> and was elected president in 1935, following the death of Signac, who had held the post since 1908.<ref name="thy"/> However, in 1940 he resigned from the position as a protest against the Vichy regime's laws which would have prohibited Jewish artists from participating in the group.<ref name="ana"/> Luce had his first solo exhibition, arranged by Fénéon, in July 1888, exhibiting ten paintings at the La Revue indépendante offices.<ref name="cle323"/><ref name="cle327"/> He showed six paintings at the 1889 Les XX exhibition in Brussels. While there, he met Les XX official Octave Maus, as well as Symbolist poet Emile Verhaeren and fellow Neo-impressionist painter Théo van Rysselberghe.<ref name="cle327"/> Luce's work was also featured in the ninth Les XX exhibition, in 1892.<ref name="cle328"/>

In the spring of 1892 Luce traveled with Pissarro to London. Later that year, he visited Saint-Tropez with Signac, and in the summer of 1893, he went to Brittany.<ref name="cle323"/>

Starting near the early part of the twentieth century, his identification with the Neo-impressionists began to disappear, as he became less active politically, and his artistic style shifted from Neo-impressionism, and he resumed painting in an Impressionist manner.<ref name="cle323"/><ref name="thy"/> Some of his paintings during this period depicted wounded World War I soldiers arriving from the battlefront to Paris.<ref name="glu"/>

Luce depicted a diverse range of subjects in his works over a long career. He most frequently created landscapes, but his other works include portraits, still lifes (especially florals), domestic scenes, such as bathers, and images of welders, rolling mill operators, and other laborers.<ref name="glu"/><ref name="thy"/>

AnarchismEdit

File:Fénéon à Mazas par Luce.jpg
Félix Fénéon at Mazas, 1894

Luce aligned with the Neo-impressionists not only in their artistic techniques, but also in their political philosophy of anarchism. Many of his illustrations were featured in socialist periodicals, notably La Révolte, Jean Grave's magazine which was later called Les Temps nouveaux.<ref name="cle323"/> Other socialist/anarchist publications which he contributed to include Le Père Peinard,<ref name="cle327"/> Le Chambard,<ref name="cle328"/> and La Guerre sociale.<ref name="cle330"/> On 8 July 1894, Luce, suspected of involvement in Template:Not a typo June assassination of President of France Marie François Sadi Carnot, was arrested and was confined to Mazas Prison. He was released forty two days later, on 17 August, following his acquittal at the Procès des trente. He published Mazas, an album consisting of ten lithographs documenting the experiences of himself and other political prisoners incarcerated in Mazas; accompanying the lithographs was text by Jules Vallès.<ref name="cle328"/> In 1896, while King Alfonso XIII of Spain was visiting Paris, the police detained Luce on the grounds that he was a "dangerous anarchist".<ref name="cle329"/>

Luce's choice of subject matter for his art was often rooted in his political beliefs. Through his paintings, he passionately demonstrated empathy and fellowship with the proletariat.<ref name="cle323"/>

FamilyEdit

File:Madame Luce on the Balcony, Maximilien Luce.jpg
Madame Luce on the Balcony, 1893

In 1893, Luce met Ambroisine "Simone" Bouin in Paris. She became his model, companion,<ref name="dam73"/> common-law wife,<ref name="cle332"/> and wife. Bouin was usually referred to as "Madame Luce", even before their eventual marriage. She was frequently a model for him, appearing in many of his works, often partially or fully nude, other times depicted in scenes such as on a balcony or combing her hair.<ref name="dam74"/> The couple's first son, Frédérick, was born on 5 June 1894, but he died fifteen months later, on 2 September 1895.<ref name="cle328"/> Their second child, whom they also named Frédérick, was born in 1896,<ref name="cle329"/> and in 1903 they adopted Ambroisine's nephew Georges Édouard Bouin, who had become orphaned. The couple got married on 30 March 1940 in Paris; just a few months later, Ambroisine died, in Rolleboise, on 7 June 1940.<ref name="dam73"/>

Death and assessmentEdit

File:Maximilien Luce Notre-Dame de Paris 1900.jpg
Notre Dame de Paris, 1900

Luce died at his Paris home on 7 February 1941, at the age of 83. He was buried in Rolleboise. In May 1941, the Bibliothèque nationale de France held a memorial exhibition, and another memorial exhibition was mounted at Les Indépendants from March to April 1942.<ref name="cle333"/>

Luce was among the most productive of the Neo-impressionists, creating over two thousand oil paintings, a comparably large number of watercolors, gouaches, pastels, and drawings, plus over a hundred prints.<ref name="cle324"/>

The Musée d'Orsay assesses Luce as "one of the best representatives of the neo-impressionist movement".<ref name="ors"/> Although he had had many solo exhibitions of his work in France, the first one in the United States did not occur until a 1997 retrospective at Wildenstein & Company in Manhattan.<ref name="glu"/>

Notre Dame de Paris, painted in 1900, sold at auction in May 2011 for Template:Currency, setting a record for a Luce work.<ref name="kin"/>

CollectionsEdit

Public collections containing Luce's work include:

File:Maximilien Luce-La Gare de l'Est sous la neige-1917.jpg
La Gare de l'Est in snow, 1917, Musée de l'Hôtel-Dieu

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GalleryEdit

  • Maximilien Luce-Man Washing.jpg

    Man Washing, 1887

  • Port of London, Night by Maximilien Luce, High Museum of Art.jpg

    Port of London, Night High Museum of Art

  • Luce-Côte de la citadelle-Musée de l'Annonciade.jpg

    Côte de la citadelle, 1892

  • Maximilien Luce Scène de Rue à Paris 1896.jpg

    Street Scene in Paris, 1896

  • Factory in the Moonlight by Maximilien Luce, 1898.jpg

    Factory in the Moonlight, 1898

  • L'ACIERIE.PNG

    L’Aciérie, 1899

  • Maximilien Luce - 'Montmartre, de la rue Cortot, vue vers saint-denis', oil on canvas painting, c. 1900.jpg

    Montmartre, de la rue Cortot, vue vers Saint-Denis, c. 1900

  • Maximilien Luce - La Seine au Pont Saint-Michel.jpg

    La Seine au Pont Saint-Michel, 1900

  • Maximilien Luce - The Quai Saint-Michel and Notre-Dame - Google Art Project.jpg

    The Quai Saint-Michel and Notre-Dame, 1901

  • Maximilien Luce - Les batteurs de pieux entre 1902 et 1905.jpg

    Les batteurs de pieux, 1902

  • Maximilien Luce - A Street in Paris in May 1871 - Google Art Project.jpg

    A Street in Paris in May 1871, 1903–1906

  • Maximilien Luce - Paysage près de Méréville.jpg

    Paysage près de Méréville, c. 1905

  • Maximilien Luce-The Port of Rotterdam, Evening.jpg

    The Port of Rotterdam, Evening, 1908

  • Le chantier.jpg

    Le chantier, 1911

  • Maximilien Luce-The Execution of Varlin.jpg

    The Execution of Varlin, 1914–1917

  • Maximilien Luce Portrait du docteur Marieux.jpg

    Portrait of Doctor Marieux

ReferencesEdit

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SourcesEdit

Further readingEdit

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  • Bouin-Luce, Jean and Denise Bazetoux, Maximilien Luce, catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint, Paris, Editions JBL, 1986–2005.
  • Brown, Stephen, "Luce, the artist engage," PhD dissertation, Columbia University, New York, N.Y. 2003
  • Cazeau, Philippe, Maximilien Luce, Lausanne, Bibliothèque des arts, 1982.
  • Fénéon, Fanny, Correspondance de Fanny & Félix Fénéon avec Maximilien Luce, illustrée par Luce de portraits originaux, Tusson, Charetnte, Du Lérot, 2001.
  • Luce, Maximilien, Maximilien Luce, peindre la condition humaine, Paris, Somogy éditions d'art, 2000.
  • Luce, Maximilien, Maximilien Luce, Palais des beaux-arts, [Charleroi] 29 octobre-4 decembre 1966, Charleroi, Palais des beaux-arts, 1966.
  • Mantes-la-Jolie, Inspirations de bords de Seine, Maximilien Luce et les peintres de son époque, Paris, Somogy, 2004.

External linksEdit

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