| As it was, it still is; as it was fifteen years ago, under the Quinette du Lapin Agile in an atmosphere of chews, sincere emotion and pipe tobacco. He leaned forward this same intelligent and sympathetic batrachian head; and, near him, Marcoussis (now hairless and kindly puppy) displayed a beard of barbaric admiral, a beard curled like a rubber sponge, but with reflections of obsidian. As it was, it still is. And while he hung the paintings the other day on the wall of the Weill gallery, I could not consider without a manner of respect this man of good faith, married young with Miss Painting and who remained always faithful to him. This loyalty seems to me the dominant characteristic of Girieud's talent. He was able to see his wife in hair curlers and in his least attractive efforts, he never ran the guilledou; he never went to see bad women. His art has remained very pure of all deception. He did not seek the gracious; has not systematically cultivated ugliness. But with the care of a good worker who makes tools for himself by hand, he patiently enriched his pigments and bound his paste. And he always came back to confront his last essay with Provence, of which he seems a charming emanation.
What he exhibits today at the Weill gallery are landscapes of Provence, again; again and thank god. With this thick, smooth painting, the material of which, seen up close, is always dense and as if tightly woven, Girieud represents the gray olive trees, each leaf of which is like a matt mirror which takes the tone of the sky and transposes it into a minor; the scorched rocks where you could see the silhouette of Prometheus twisting without surprise, and the cypresses, sprouting from the stony ground, like black flames that the mistral endeavors in vain to lay down and extinguish.
It’s a serious and clear display, of gleaming pictures of honesty. It stands, I repeat, at the B. Weill gallery. I had to estimate as I do, Girieud's talent to decide, I admit, to cross this threshold. |