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Johan Barthold JONGKIND

Lettre autographe signée au père Martin, marchand de tableaux des Impressionnistes : "faire un tableau représentant une pleine mere [sic] je ne crois pas pouvoir réussir. Car pour cela il faut naviguer."

14 août 1862, 13,7x20,9cm, une feuille rempliée.

Autograph letter signed by the painter Johan Barthold Jongkind, to Pierre-Firmin Martin, known as "le père Martin", dealer of Impressionist paintings, having participated in the organization of the first Impressionist exhibition of 1874. 4 pages on one sheet of paper.
The painter wrote this letter in 1862 at the beginning of his "decisive trip to Normandy [...] where Jongkind met Eugène Boudin and Claude Monet", (Jongkind, Des Pays-Bas au Dauphiné, Musée Hector-Berlioz de La Côte-Saint-André, 2009).
Staying in Rouen for a few days, he rediscovered the city he had known fifteen years earlier, during a first trip with the painter Eugène Isabey. Amazed by the surrounding nature, Jongkind describes the city and talks about his painting projects and his studies from nature.
Jongkind's occupations during this initiatory trip to Normandy are mostly known thanks to the correspondence that the painter addressed to the recipient of this letter, the merchant Pierre-Firmin Martin. Jongkind gives him a candid description of his impressions of Rouen: "I made some drawings, some watercolours, but nature is so splendid [...] that it is really difficult to draw everything you see. It's not only the river, but the streets. With all this clutter and buildings of Normandy gives a character for the rich sight to the city of Rouen. I am leaving today for Le Havre and perhaps for Honfleur". 
 It was during his stay in Honfleur that he met Claude Monet, who soon considered Jongkind to be one of his masters and to whom he owed, in his words, "the definitive education of his eye".
In the course of a sentence, Jongkind mentions a project for a study of a seascape in the open air: 'to make a painting representing the open sea [sic] I do not think I can succeed. Because for that you have to sail. That the journey costs a lot of money. To do something extra and to settle down at a good opportunity it is necessary to find it and it is difficult to have time for that". 
These studies from nature, often done in precarious conditions, were then reworked in the studio, following the tradition of English and Dutch landscape painters.
We discover the travel conditions of the painters, Jongkind evokes the hospitality of the Rouen innkeepers: "[...] in a hotel where I stayed several times more than ten years ago.  The proprietor and the lady recognised me perfectly - and what pleased me was that I found the house all well". 
This passage reminds us of the important role played by these hosts for the Impressionist artists, who in Barbizon, Rouen, the Oise valley or the Albatre coast, welcomed the artists, offering them food and lodging at low prices, sometimes even in exchange for paintings.
For his Norman trip, Jongkind benefited from the generosity of a patron, and like many of his colleagues, had recently suffered a financial debacle: "You will understand, my good Martin, for five years I have suffered so much".
Two years earlier, Pierre-Firmin Martin had helped him to settle his debts and ensure his return to France by organising sales of his paintings.
A beautiful and instructive letter on the Norman travels of the pre-impressionist artists and the creative methods of the painter Johan Barthold Jongkind.
 

 

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