Artist of the Week: Lucien Levy-Dhurmer
Lucien
Levy-Dhurmer's pastel and charcoal picture "Medusa" or "Waging Wave"
(shown here) was completed in 1897. The artwork is an excellent example
of the symbolist style. Symbolists prefer vision to sight. The art is
tinged with spirituality and plunges into beliefs, myths and legends.
For them woman is often a deadly creature, a poisonous, raging being, a
monster of accursed beauty. The world of appearances fades away before
the dream like universe; the elements come to life, take human form and
become nightmarish figures.
They call themselves Symbolists, these painters, draughtsman and artists
who share the same goal: to make the invisible visible, to cling to
fate, dreams from the subconscious and other places. Lucien Levy- praise
for the academic attention to detail with which he captured figures lost
in a Pre-Raphaelike haze of melancholy, contrasted with bright
Impressionist coloration. His portrait of writer Georges Rodenbach is
perhaps the most striking example of this strange and extraordinary
synergy. Lucien Levy Dhurmer began to use pastels a great deal, this
medium with its suggestive blurred effects, lending itself to the magic
of symbolism; several of his contemporaries, particularly Fantin-Latour
and Khnopff, were equally attracted by his pastel technique. He was
influenced by the ideas both of Khnopff and the Pre-Raphaelites (this
latter influence can be seen particularly in his rather languid women
and his idealized figures). Levy-Dhurmer exhibited frequently at the
Salon d'Automne.
Comments