Old Masters and 19th Century Art

Provenance:

Galerie Jean de Ruaz, Paris, France.

Sotheby's Park Bernet, New York, sale of November 5, 1969, lot 88.

Sotheby's, London, sale of March 27, 1980, lot 312.

Sotheby's, London, sale of October 21, 1987, lot 120.

Bonhams Los Angeles, sale of November 14, 2017, lot 72.

Acquired directly from the above sale by the present owner.

Exhibited:

Dusseldorf, Galerie Ander Königsallee, 1981, no. 24.

Lot Essay:

Victor Alfred Paul Vignon grew up in the village of Villers-Cotterêts and spent the majority of his life in towns on the outskirts of Paris. He enjoyed the nostalgia of the countryside, stating “I should like it to be the countryside of the past, far removed from any noise, still filled with the things of yesteryear.” Vignon was best known for his Impressionist paintings, with collectors and art dealers fascinated by his work, with its undoubted Impressionist charm, but also its stylistic diversions from the movement. 

Vignon contributed to four of eight Impressionist exhibitions in the late nineteenth century. As many Impressionists did, he developed an artistic understanding by visiting the Louvre and studying the Old Masters. He worked alongside other painters, notably Camille Pissarro and Paul Cézanne, but his work amalgamates a variety of influences that distinguish him from the other Impressionists. While his work represents the progressiveness of Impressionism and its obsession with light, color, and dynamic brushstrokes, it also is nostalgia embodied, neat and reminiscent of traditional French landscape painting, with a disregard, or perhaps rejection, of modernity. Art critic Claude Roger-Marx, who owned works by Vignon, wrote: “it was your lot to serve as a link between two schools that succeeded one another and fought...to constitute a transition between what was and what will be, between the art of yesterday and the art of tomorrow.”

Other admirers of Vignon’s work include brothers Theo and Vincent van Gough. Theo owned at least one work by the artist, Woman in a Vineyard, which hung in his dining room. Vignon met Vincent through Theo. Vincent dreamt of living with a community of artists at a house in Arles, inspiring his famous painting The Yellow House, and he considered Vignon a potential participant. Unfortunately, the dream was never realized.

Chemin Montant, translating roughly to Ascending Path, is stunningly emblematic of Vignon’s unique style, painted both playfully and tidily. The winding path and high horizon are characteristic of his oeuvre. Many of the artist’s works explore the motif of the path, perhaps a symbol of the human presence in nature, not disruptive, but passively appreciative. The single figure on the left of the composition further represents this. The woman is one with the landscape, her dress reminiscent of the blue mountains behind her.

The work is an ode to the quiet countryside and the people among it, undisturbed by even a hint of city bustle. Roger-Marx described Vignon’s work as ‘tending towards a less immediate art, more inward-looking' and ‘confess[ing] the hatred of noise, of movement... it speaks of communion with nature.’ Above everything, Vignon was interested in the relationship between man and nature. The path invites the viewer to stand on it, welcoming a similar dialogue, seeking harmony in the landscape and in the self.