Gustave... 1883
Manet passed away seven months ago. A great feeling of emptiness. We are all orphans. He said: "A painter can say everything with fruits or flowers...". Well he was right and I will add: "A painter can say everything with light and colors".
Today, I finished a canvas of good dimensions: "Promenade à Argenteuil". I did a quick sketch last summer. A light wind made the trees quiver, the sky was cloudless.
On the square, in front of the fence of the refreshment bar, I quickly had Charlotte pose with her parasol.
A painter can say anything with fruits or flowers! Last year I painted a dish of peaches. Invitation to succumb to temptation! My twelve peaches await their executioner like resigned apostles. Plump apostles, with velvet skin, in the colors of the setting sun. Manet would have painted them differently, I'm sure.
Manet, I saw his strawberries in their wicker basket. Damn, that brushstroke! The extreme precision in the rendering, with this false modesty of the brush which gives you the fruit without seeming to do so, in broad strokes, nestled in its case.
Still life... The term is curious, by the way. The English say "Still life" - calm life. The Germans "Stillleben". What could be livelier than this basket of freshly picked strawberries?
This morning I completed the will I left in 1876. I added Charlotte and my goddaughter Jenny. And then my brother Martial, I give him full ownership of everything we have in common, in addition to what is legally his.
© Fabrice Roy. Journal apocryphe de Gustave. 2023
In his art history lectures, Fabrice Roy combines the past with the present, in a poetic and playful evocation of the French 19th century...
