By Harry Laventure
Of late (and wherefore I know not), the grand movements of art history have found new determinisms. In this epoch of images, we the pedestrians have more exposure than ever before to any piece of art we desire. The dosage we receive is no longer at the behest or prescription of authenticated scholars, nor does it come with labels attached. Indeed, it is no stretch to say that our eyes can outrun the footfall of any Grand Tourist of old within moments. As such, the established nomenclature for movements of art have lost their gravitas, and we are more often – without further, deliberate investigation – to make our minds of what we see without clues. As such, large strokes of Baroque, Renaissance, and Mannerist art becomes “Italian, religious art”. Post-war abstract expressionists are the “my-children-could-do-thats”. Perhaps the cruellest public treatment has come to the Impressionists and their immediate successors. Victims of their own vanquishing, they are the “chocolate box artists”; the postcard landscapes; the wallpaper poltergeists.
From this clientele, there remains no doubt an ostentation of mellifluously French names in the vocabulary of the everyman: Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Van Gogh (perhaps less French). Those who made totems of waterlilies, umbrellas, apples, and sunflowers have been rewarded with a lasting fame, fresh to the market and gallery alike. Among these heavyweights, one name you may not be so familiar with is Georges Charles Robin. Having spent a week in the company of his oeuvre, I’d like to present his case.
Georges Charles Robin (“row-ban” rather than the red-breasted variety) was born in Paris, 1903. Although little is known of his early life and artistic education, his natural gift is unmistakable: Robin began as scenery artist for the Charleville Theatre, and the Dinan Casino. In his lifetime as an artist proper, however, his canvas would play host to several locations that were luminaries of his living arrangements. Among them, Rueil Malmaison’s more salubrious panoramas, Morlaix’s summer blooms, and the rivulets that etch the contours of the Loire Valley and the Dordogne region. More often championed for his rural than urban works, there is no pomposity or material opulence to his corpus: it was serenity rather than salon that formed his locus amoenus, and his delicate muses are to be found in the ornately rustic realm. Robin would live to his hundredth year, having become a member of innumerable French artistic societies, officer of the Académie des Beaux Arts, director of the Institute of “Instruction Publique”, and been decorated by the Hors Concours amidst countless other French art awards. In spite of this remarkable bundle of ribbons and statistics, Robin continues to be widely absent from the history books, and by extension the public memory.
It is perhaps, after all, too easy for a man of subtlety to be lost in the parade of caricatures and radicals that preceded him. Indeed, one interesting thing about the repurposing of the Impressionist sunset for the tablecloth is the newfound quietude. Synchronically, we cannot understand the movement as anything less than an artistic equivalent of violent revolution. The late 19th/early 20th century assault in all its anti-classical insouciance was one of style and sentiment. As the art world’s establishments wept for the death of academicism in a few swift splodges of colour against total realism, new precedents were set by artists of immense impact devoid of certification. Principles of belonging as imposters have governed the art world since. And yet, if careless, one can break free from prison to find himself unemployed. Inheriting this debris, the sensible man asks what should be done, rather than what could be done. As one who was forged in this particular bain-marie, that is precisely what Robin did.
And how we may read it on the canvas. Take his Bords du Loir, a delightfully tranquil scene: as we look up from the crystalline, stilled embrace of a river, speckles of figures bumble across an arched stone bridge, towards a cluster of sun-breathed buildings. Cypresses line the riverbank like emerald quills, and a bouquet of soft blues tangle with ivory clouds above. A rowing boat lays matchstick-like at the edge of the water, without an oarsman – perhaps they too have stopped to watch? There is nothing bombastic about the painting. On the contrary, the gentle dynamism of the brushwork makes shimmers of the scene, as if the most delicate of breezes would leave the canvas and its cast tremulous. This is no outlier – the very same is observable in my personal favourite, L’Eglise de Montrozier sur L’Aveyron. An altogether similar arrangement, but an opportunity to note his alacrity for tremors in the dust path we walk along to church, and survey Robin’s capacity for reflection in a stream that is neither too exact as to be false, nor murky to be unfaithful. His Impressionist forefathers found the limits of what could reasonably be done on a canvas in an anti-traditional fashion. Robin, however, refines the achievements of these predecessors rather than continuing their experiments.
In no facet of his work is this more blatant than in his attitudes to palette. Firstly, if one takes numerous Monet or Pissarro works, there is a deliberate lean towards the psychedelic in normal subject matter. Whether in a congregation of flowers from the gardens of Giverny or a nocturnal Parisian street scene, there is a hunt for a kind of pyrotechnics in paint on the canvas. Likewise in Robin’s contemporaries Pierre Montézin and Edouard Cortès, fireworks of pinks and blues pollinate every pore of the picture, resulting in kaleidoscopic spectra in subjects as ostensibly simple as stacks of hay. Contrast this with the restrained palette of Robin’s paintings above, and you gain efficient insight into his mentality. As expert Anthony Fuller of Gladwell & Patterson’s Gallery puts it, ‘the juxtaposition of each colour softens them, and they have a quiet richness’. The precise colours of a moment are each fragmented into shades that differ with such minute playfulness as to leave every atomic subcategory as individual notes within grand chords. The resultant cadence is profound in a way that rewards rather than grapples your focus.
Further still, as a variation on the theme, the likes of Hassam and Suzor-Coté were castigated for their use of colours that had a fidelity to the ‘impression’ of a scene, if not its true likeness. This is most notorious in the manner that indigos and violets cling to their snow scenes: whilst it is perhaps true that the cocktail of sunlight and glacial blue renders a purple sensation for the viewer, this does not change the true colour of each constituent parts. (There is a lingering debate on truth, imitation, and likeness which I do not have room to sink my paws into here, perhaps another time). Robin, on the other hand, does not have to ‘adopt’ colours to fit a scene – they are the shades indigenous to a given subject. Nowhere is this more obvious than in La Seine à Bougival, Le Soir. Bruising is reserved for the sky, and flour white for the snow. All is coherent, none is superimposed. A cunning and useful symbol: amidst all the fog of this wintery nocturne, every vague angle of the composition draws our eyes to the path ahead and the peppery figures opposite who walk towards us, arm in arm. Each Robin requires the sincere attention to surroundings that one enjoys on a nightly stroll. He does not demand your eyes, but a glance is a tip of the hat. To indulge them proper is to participate – that is your choice.
This subtlety, and the humble worship of that nature which has been documented for centuries, devoid of grandiosity or party tricks, is Robin’s greatest success. A rare sincerity reserved for the too oft ignored in the everyday. Alas, it is also probably the reason why you haven’t heard of him.
This week just gone, I had the privilege of helping Gladwell & Patterson set up their new gallery in Stamford, Lincolnshire. Part of this privilege was unadulterated time to chew the cud on all things Robin with Anthony, son of Herbert Fuller, the man who discovered him. Anthony is as joyous as he is erudite on Robin, and he patiently endured a barrage of questions from me – for this I will always be grateful. Moreover, he enjoys a masterfully intimate command of the technicalities involved therein, and can reanimate the artistic mechanics behind each piece with accuracy far beyond these little jottings of mine. Anthony has long insisted that Georges Charles Robin is an artist of tomorrow. I happen to agree.
Since Covid, the art market has seen an unprecedented shift towards Post-War, Modern, and Contemporary movements, which last year accounted for 77% of sales (by value) within auction houses. Beyond the pomp and gimmick of shredding frames and falling buckets of sand, may we hope to relearn the art of looking without the need for active stimulation. When we do, sincerity will await us like a bit of peace and quiet after a tube ride. Free from chocolate box prints, and dusted off for due attention, Georges Charles Robin will be there.