Gari Melchers: The Influence of Paris

"The Skaters" by Gari Melchers

"Paris may not have been as important as Holland was to Gari Melchers' art and life, but he spent a good deal of time in the city in the final decades of the century. Correspondence indicates that he occupied at least three different studios during his visits there while he maintained a studio and residence at Egmond in Holland. Although he painted primarily Dutch subjects, he probably finished many of the paintings begun at Egmond in his Paris studios. His exhibition record also testifies to an active involvement in the Paris art scene.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes was Melchers' closest associate among the French artists. He frequently visited the French symbolist at his studio in the Place Pigalle. Puvis gave Melchers his own Legion of Honor Cross on the day when the American artist received notice of being awarded the same medal by the French government. Puvis' medal is now in the Belmont collection in Virginia, along with an oil sketch and two short letters. 

Melchers' contact with Puvis also affected his other oil paintings of the period. 'The Skaters' show the influence of Puvis' style in their shallow space, which is limited by the positioning of the figures in the immediate foreground. Further, the landscape elements that fill the upper area of the compositions and the girl's embroidered cape form a linear pattern which is read across the surface rather than into depth. 

Puvis was but one of the internationally renowned artists with whom Melchers was associated in Paris. He also had professional dealings with Auguste Rodin, having been commissioned by Scribner and Sons to illustrate an article on Rodin's sculpture. Three nude figure studies by Rodin and a short note by him to Melchers in the Belmont collection provide further evidence of contact between the two artists. 

Melchers can be linked with other lesser-known Parisian artists and writers. Alfred Philippe Roll, Jean Charles Cazin, William Turner Dannat, Mihály von Munkácsy and Alexandre Dumas fils were among those he met with regularly at the Café Dréy. 

The development of his painting is in large part based on developments in French art: the realist paintings of the 1880s, the impressionistic style of his middle and late periods, the symbolism which broadened the graphic range of his art beyond the limitations of realism, and the highly saturated and arbitrary colors of his late works reflecting stylistic innovations of post-impressionism."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Gari Melchers: His Life and Art" by Joseph G. Dreiss.)