Emile Brunet (1869-1943) Oil On Canvas

Émile BRUNET (1869-1943)
Friends by the lake
Oil on canvas mounted - modern frame under glass
38cm X 25.5cm visible
Signed
some small losses, detachments and probable old restorations

Painter from Bordeaux, he is with Odilon Redon and Charles Lacoste one of the rare Girondin representatives of the French symbolist school. Student at the École des Beaux Arts in Bordeaux before completing his training in the studio of Gustave Moreau at the Beaux Arts in Paris which he attended from 1893 to 1897, he rubbed shoulders there with Matisse, Marquet, Maxence and became friends with Georges Rouault.
A man of faith, of a reserved temperament and probably resigned to accepting the hazards of a mixed career, strongly marked by his ouster during the affair of the ceiling of the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, Brunet leaves us a gentle painting, often spiritual, mysterious, absent from the vicissitudes of his century, in which we can recognize, according to the periods and families of subjects, neighborhoods with Moreau of course, but also Sérusier, Rouault, Matisse or Fautrier when his greasy, thick touch tends to erase the subject.

Émile Brunet painted numerous religious scenes, large decorative formats (notably for the Hôtel Fruges in Bordeaux), portraits, troubadour scenes or landscapes of the Cap Ferret peninsula where he had a small house in the village of Jacquets and in which he died in 1943.

Our painting is part of these "troubadour" subjects, of medieval inspiration. Four characters are present. Two female musicians, one playing the lute, the second, pensive, sits with a rebec and a tambourine near her. In the background, two men, one sitting, his back to the scene, looks at the landscape. The second is standing, leaning against a stone, exchanging a look, perhaps a word, with the musician.
The group is at the edge of a body of water and, with surprise, we discover in the background, hidden in the foliage of a tree, the shadow of a character who is watching them...

The composition is similar to that of a watercolor published in Dominique DUSSOL's book "Émile Brunet, Le spleen de Bordeaux" (p27) (see attached photo).

The work is presented in a modern frame, under glass, the choice of the previous owner in order to protect the skin of this canvas which, in the long term, will deserve restoration.

Reference:
Dominique DUSSOL, "Émile Brunet, Le spleen de Bordeaux", ed. Le Festin, 2010