| (....) While Alfred Lombard exhibits at the Druet gallery, his compatriot and friend Pierre Girieud exhibits at the Berthe Weill gallery. He too seeks to enchant and reassure the spectator. Capable of designing and establishing large compositions that are both plastic and allegorical, today he only shows a series of landscapes composed, if not inspired, by Provence.
In Provence, a painter who loves the voluptuous nobility of lines and forms gets along quickly with nature. An intelligent and loving transcription of reality is enough to give a study the stable and serious appearance of a painting. Between Aix and Toulon the mountain ranges develop like stanzas. Girieud paints the Sainte Victoire, Mont Olympe or Coudon as another would recite the verses of Ronsard, Hugo or Moréas.
Looking at these two exhibitions, which satisfy and exalt both the senses and the spirit, we thought of Joachim Gasquet, the poet who was not only the friend but the host of these two painters. Gasquet would have been happy to see so many promises fulfilled that he was the first to anticipate and which he helped, encouraged the hatching. Alas Gasquet is no longer here today! but, for us, his thought is not extinguished: his reflection gently and peacefully illuminates the paintings of Alfred Lombard and Pierre Girieud. |