Henri Joseph Harpignies
Born in Valenciennes in 1819 Henri-Joseph Harpignies was first employed as a commercial traveller. He was a pupil of the landscape painter Jean Achard, whom he visited in Brussels in 1848 and with whom he travelled round France. He was deeply influenced by the Barbizon artists and, like them, he worked regularly in the Forest of Fontainebleau. After 1869 the village of Hérisson in the Allier became another favoured site but he also travelled throughout France and painted in the Auverne and the Bourbonnais.
From 1885 Harpignies spend several months each winter at Beaulieu, near Nice, where he could continue to work in the open air. First he painted the landscape in watercolour but later he turned to charcoal, thus creating a repertoire of sketches of the scenery that he then worked up into large, finished oils, such as this, in his studio. Although this is a large painting, and was clearly painted in the studio, Harpignies has managed to retain in it the relaxed mood and sultry atmosphere of late afternoon on the Mediterranean.
The gentleness of the southern landscape in emphasised by the meandering of the path which leads the eye into the composition. The red hat of the larger of the two figures catches the eye, but only for a moment. Towering above these minute figures is a group of enormous trees that all but block the view of the distant coast. To their left two smaller, leafless trees, subtly echo the gentle curve of their neighbours, so that they eye is finally lead towards the sea, which can be glimpsed through the space between them. Harpignies was particularly noted for his depiction of trees (Anatole France called him "the Michelangelo of trees") and in this painting his ability to make them the almost anthropomorphic subject of his work, is clearly illustrated.
Harpignies' work was popular both in France and in England. He exhibited at the Salon from 1853 onwards and was awarded a gold medal in 1866 and further medals in 1868 and 1869. He became a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1875, an officier in 1883 and a Commandeur in 1901. Apart from his regular winter sojourns on the Mediterranean, after 1878 Harpignies stayed mainly around his home at Saint Privé, (Yonne), where he died in 1916.
