Henri Duhem - The Douai Lock At Dusk - Oil On Canvas

Henri DUHEM (Douai, 1860 – Juan-les-Pins, 1941)
The Douai lock at dusk
Oil on canvas
54x73 cm / 67.5x86 cm with its frame
Signed lower left “henri duhem”
Inscriptions on the back: “brume / quai / Dominicains”
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Henri Duhem is one of the painters described as intimists, striving with realism and poetry to “express the inner life of things or beings”, in the words of the art critic Camille Mauclair. A landscape painter, he particularly celebrates the beauty of his hometown, Douai, as in this painting where he strives to transcribe the effects of the sunset on the Scarpe Canal, at the level of the lock, in particular the golden shimmering of the facades and quays. The scene is animated by silhouettes of passers-by, on the bridge and the banks, while sailors are busy on their barges.
Like the quays of Douai, the sheep or the haystacks, the lock is one of the recurring motifs in the work of Henri Duhem, who exhibited versions in oil and watercolor throughout his career. The light touch and the chromatic range used mixing tones of orange, pink, purple and blue are also representative of the painter's work, of which this painting is a good example.