The Countryside around Siena | MSK Gent
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The Countryside around Siena, 1911

  • oil paint, cardboard, panel
  • 52.6 x 70.5 cm
  • Inv. 1922-AC

Public Domain

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The influence of his Italian travels on Georges Dufrénoy's oeuvre can hardly be overestimated. Not only was his acquaintance with the work of Renaissance masters such as Titian and Tintoretto crucial for the development of his manner of painting, but the beautiful landscape and the light in the Tuscan landscape also fascinated him immensely. By alternating transparent and opaque layers of paint - which he saw in Tintoretto, among others - Dufrénoy succeeded, despite the rapid and broad brushstroke that took his work to the limits of abstraction, always creating a strikingly atmospheric representation of the landscape. The cityscapes of Tuscan towns occupy an extensive place in his oeuvre. The Sienese countryside is a representative work by Dufrénoy in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts. Apart from the stylistic features, the stillness and the solitude that the work exudes are typical of Dufrénoy's entire oeuvre. The Surroundings of Siena was purchased by the City of Ghent at the Salon of Ghent in 1922. Dufrénoy is probably not the most inventive or important artist of Fauvism. Yet it cannot be denied that he succeeded, as peintre de la solitude, in creating a personal and original oeuvre that can be seen as a synthesis of the main movements of the avant-garde at the beginning of the twentieth century. [...] Dufrénoy est un synthétiste, [...], qui sent par larges impressions et peint par grandes touches, sacrifiant presque toujours le détail inutile à l'ensemble, guidé par la lumineuse loi d'amour, capable d'éclairer les vrais artistes décidés à asservir la matière à leurs fins, et à lui imposer leur volonté pour en extraire le maximum de beauté. (Deroudille, 1984, p. 22)

Artist

Georges Dufrénoy RKD
Thiais 1870 - Salles-Arbuissonnas-en-Beaujolais 1942
painters (artists)AAT

Title The Countryside around Siena
Date 1911
Period 20th century
Location Siena TGN
Signatures, inscriptions, and markings year and signature bottom right: 1911 Dufrenoy
Collection paintings AAT
Object type oil paintings (visual works) AAT
Inventory number 1922-AC
Acquisition credit purchase
salon
Ghent
1922
Current whereabouts Work currently not on display
Permalink https://mskgent.be/collection/work/data/1922-AC
IIIF Manifest https://imagehub.mskgent.be/iiif/3/894/manifest.json
Art & Architecture Thesaurus 300015636 landscapes AAT
300015571 cityscapes (representations) AAT
Keywords Iconclass 11Q712 church (exterior) Iconclass
24F firmament, sky Iconclass
25H1 landscapes in the temperate zone Iconclass
25H113 (high) hill Iconclass
25I city-view, and landscape with man-made constructions Iconclass
25I12 prospect of city, town panorama, silhouette of city Iconclass
25I146 city-walls Iconclass
25I3 farm or solitary house in landscape Iconclass
26A clouds Iconclass
41A143 detached house in city Iconclass
41A17 farm (building) Iconclass
47I411 orchard Iconclass
61D(ITALY) geographical names of countries, regions, mountains, rivers, etc. (names of cities and villages excepted) (ITALY) Iconclass
61D(TUSCANY) geographical names of countries, regions, mountains, rivers, etc. (names of cities and villages excepted) (TUSCANY) Iconclass
61E(SIENA) names of cities and villages (SIENA) Iconclass
School / Style Expressionist (style) AAT
Modernist AAT
Catalogus van het Museum van Schoone Kunsten Gent : II: Moderne Meesters / Georges Chabot, Fritz Van Loo. - Gent : Ad. Hoste, 1932 (p. 60)
Museum voor Schone Kunsten Gent : Catalogus schilderkunst ; Deel I: 14de - 18de eeuw ; Deel II: 19de - 20ste eeuw / Robert Hoozee, Johan De Smet, Bruno Fornari, Ruth Monteyne. - Gent : Museum voor Schone Kunsten Gent, 2007 (dl. II, p. 138-139 (ill.))
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