Lot 227 Nα

Gustave Loiseau enrolled at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris to study painting, but left the school after a short time. Instead, he was able to convince the landscape painter Fernand Quignon to teach him privately; however, Loiseau ultimately also remained unconvinced by his pure studio painting. In 1890 Loiseau travelled to Pont Aven at the recommendation of his teacher, and he became friends with Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard and Maxime Maufra. In Pont Aven he was able to pursue plein-air painting, which was essential for the vibrant atmospheres of the light in his landscape images. His experiments with pointillism led to a very distinctive version of post-impressionism. Loiseau developed a technique for applying the paint “en treillis”, that is, in the form of cross-hatching, allowing him to successfully combine multiple colours into vibrant local colour and providing the identifying feature of his works. His early successes at the Salon des Indépendants and the support of Paul Durand-Ruel - doubtlessly the most renowned Parisian art dealer of that time - enabled Gustave Loiseau to travel constantly. He spent the winter in Paris and in Pontoise on the Île-de-France; in the warmer parts of the year, he travelled through the landscapes of Brittany, Normandy and the Dordogne.
The artist often painted his landscape views or Parisian cityscapes multiple times in order to capture them under different weather and lighting conditions. Thus, there are also various atmospheric views of the Norman town of Dieppe. Loiseau's typical brushstroke, with its characteristic lattice structure, is readily recognisable in the painted panorama of Dieppe's harbour offered here. The harbour is depicted on a sunny, though somewhat misty day. The town's sea of buildings, the dock and the summer sky placed high up in the picture display a fascinating diversity of bright tones, and the cheerful, slightly blurry quality of the light is realised in a succinct manner.