98
This painting of a country road in a rural setting leads the viewer into
a bright and sunlit landscape in which there is no indication of either
human or animal presence. O’Conor seldom included figures in his
landscapes but in this work only the inclusion of the roadside buildings,
and those breaking against the horizon line in the middle distance, in-
dicate that we are approaching a rural hamlet or village. Although it has
been exhibited on several occasions as
Landscape with Road and Farm
Buildings
the composition and subject matter of this painting strongly
suggest that it may be the work known as
Chemin Mènant à Grez
,(
Road
leading to Grez)
which was catalogued as number 563 in the group of
ten works which O’Conor showed at the 1890 Salon des Indépendants,
in which he gave his address as Hotel Beausejour, Grez. Coincidentally,
Vincent van Gogh, who had taken his own life in June of that year, was
represented posthumously in the same exhibition also by ten works.
Catalogues for the 1889 Paris Salon and the 1889 Indépendants exhi-
bition, also list O’Conor’s address as Hotel Laurent, Grez, confirming
his residence in the community in the preceding year.
The flat landscape depicted here is typical of the rural environment
at Grez-sur-Loing, where there was an active colony of internation-
al artists in residence in the village. Many of them stayed in the well
known and popular Hotel Chevillon, and others found accommodation
in private homes. An important factor in Grez’s popularity, particu-
larly for non-French artists, was its proximity to Paris with a frequent
train service which ran from the Gare de Lyon to the nearby village
of Montigny, making day trips from Paris possible. Its rustic village
charm and its location on the river Loing, close to the great forest of
Fontainebleau, attracted numerous young visiting artists from America,
Scandinavia, Italy, and England, and from as far afield as Japan.
In Paris, O’Conor studied under the guidance of Carolus Duran, who
had built a considerable reputation as a fashionable society portrait
painter. He was also known to be a sympathetic teacher, capable of
reaching out to his students and flexible in his instruction so that a
broad range of individual needs were catered for and developed in his
studio. Judging by the number of Duran’s students who are known to
have painted at Grez, particularly in the summer months, a special re-
lationship had developed between his atelier and the quiet picturesque
village which was less than 70 kilometres to the south of the city, on the
fringes of the great forest of Fontainebleau. Grez was also well known
to a number of other Irish
émigré
artists who had painted there, and
prior to O’Conor’s arrival it had been the choice of Frank O’Meara
who had spent 13 years there before illness forced his return to Ireland
in 1888. John Lavery had also painted at Grez, as had Katherine Mac-
Causland. It was also in Grez that O’Conor developed a lifelong friend-
ship with the American painter Francis (Frank) Chadwick, owner of
the Pension Laurent where O’Conor preferred to stay. Chadwick, a
talented painter, had also studied with Duran before O’Conor arrived
in Paris, and he quickly became a great admirer and supporter of the
Irish painter’s work.
This important early work shows Roderic O’Conor’s awareness and
appreciation of Impressionist techniques, which he introduced into his
work after he had moved from Dublin to Paris in the autumn of 1886.
That was the year of the eighth and last Impressionist group exhibition
which had taken place in May, well before O’Conor’s arrival. He is,
however, likely to have seen numerous paintings in the impressionist
style at the annual Salon des Indépendants exhibition held in Septem-
ber, and through visits to the competing galleries of Paul Durand-Ruel
and Georges Petit, the leading Impressionist dealers in Paris.
In this painting, with its closely related tonal changes, O’Conor has
painted the landscape forms and the buildings with that sense of di-
rectness and spontaneity which reflected the
plein-airism
of Impres-
sionist painters such as Monet, Pissaro, and Sisley, and which was to
become a defining characteristic of O’Conor’s developing painting
style.There is little preliminary drawing in evidence and the paint has
been applied directly to the canvas using a technique which effectively
combines brush and palette knife in the building up of a painterly tex-
ture which is wholly appropriate to its subject. Paintings such as this,
and O’Conor’s earlier
Groupe des peupliers, effet de soleil
, 1886
,
(also
known as
Autumn Landscape
) identify him at this early stage in his
career as one of the most advanced English speaking painters of his
generation.
1. See Roderic O’Conor, 1860-1940, Retrospective exhibition cata-
logue, Musée de Pont-Aven, France, 30 June - 30 September,1984 as
Paysage avec Ferme au Bord de la Route
, (2); Roderic O’Conor, Retro-
spective exhibition catalogue, Ulster Museum Belfast; Barbican Art
Gallery, London; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; National Gal-
lery of Ireland, Dublin, as
Landscape with Road and Farm Buildings
,
(5) (1985?) ; Vision and Expression, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of
Modern Art, Dublin, p.24 as
Landscape with Road and Farm Buildings
pp.24-25.
2. Formerly known as Hotel or Pension Laurent.
Dr. Roy Johnston
