Paul Avram
(bilingual album English / French) NON-EXHIBITED WORKS OF THE MASTERS - FRENCH SCHOOL OF PAINTING - Volume 1 During his or her creation period, the artist produces works other than those that found their place in time in a museum or official gallery. This category holds the studies and sketches, as well as finished works, which for various reasons or circumstances have not come to the attention of official art collectors. A simple, unfinished pencil study can tell as many things about its creator as a finished full-color painting, and from some technical points of view, it can provide even more information. In addition, the artistic message is present throughout, in any kind of work, either finished or not. 'A painting is finished when any form of the means used for accomplishing the goal has disappeared,' said Whistler about finishing the execution of a painting; however, he adds that 'The work of the real masters does not smell of sweat - it does not suggest effort - but seems to be finished even in the moment when it was started.' Accordingly we can say that the non-exhibited works of a master have the same value as those museal, even if the latter may delight the eye of the uninitiated visitor more than the former. Thus, for both contemplators and specialists in a certain style, school of painting, or artist, these works, which are not exhibited in museums or national galleries, represent study resources and data sources that must not be ignored. A study or a sketch can reveal essential elements regarding the artist's technique, the initial approach to the subject, and the execution itself. A work executed quickly, as a gift or dedication for someone, can provide information about an artist's understanding of human relationships. The several non-exhibited works, whether finished with scrupulosity or in haste, ordered or freely executed, made in the study period or after the artist achieved recognition, can successfully complete an artist's profile and can delight the eye as much as the officially exhibited works. For certain artists, such works may be spread across large areas, many of them still being in circulation. We can find them at auction houses, art stores, private galleries, art marketplaces, and through independent sellers, until they arrive in some major private collection, from which they might migrate again at some point. In art publishing, all books and albums of this specialty reproduce officially exhibited works, for the most part museal. And often, the studies regarding a specific artist develop on the basis of these exhibited works. For this reason, but also for offering the art lover images of works that have not yet appeared in print, we considered as essential the publication of a series of painting albums to present images of some works belonging to established painters, yet not exhibited in museums and official galleries. The present album, the first in the series, is dedicated to several masters of the French painting school - the most prolific school - all born in the 18th and 19th centuries (Gérard, Delpech, Ransonnette, Delacroix, Demoussy, Perrin, Ziem, De Rochebrune, Boudin, Fichel, Pauzat, Guignard, Anglade, Galien-Laloue, Langlois, Matisse, Fougerat, Dufy, Perronet, Louche, Cacan, Chabaud, Braque, David, Gernez). Here are presented various styles, mediums, and techniques, as well as various types of works.
