Pierre Marcel-beronneau (1869-1937) - The Park Basin In Autumn - Oil On Panel

Originally from Bordeaux, Pierre Marcel-Beronneau studied at the National School of Fine Arts in the studio of Gustave Moreau. Admitted to the Salon of French Artists from 1895, he pursued two paths of creation in parallel, one in the Symbolist vein and the other more classical, which enabled him to obtain official purchases and awards. In 1914, he was also decorated Knight of the Legion of Honor.
After his marriage in 1918 to a landscape painter, he settled near his in-laws in Versailles. He found there a motif conducive to creation and produced many views of the gardens of the Petit Trianon, in which the trees hold a preponderant place, their trunks and their long inclined branches with golden leaves obstructing the horizon and thus creating a space closed by a nature that is as attractive as it is slightly disturbing. Like this Bassin du parc en automne, characteristic of Marcel-Béronneau's very personal production, these landscapes often feature an unoccupied white wooden bench, a circular basin and other architectural remains, such as the stone basin or the fountain, which underline the absence of human life and seem to be the last testimonies of a civilization that has disappeared.