The free and the tethered soul - two paintings by Julien Renevier

 

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Monastery Library with Three Capuchin Monks. (Probably at the Abbey Chiusi della Verna.)

 Male Nude Model with Accordion in a Painter's Studio.

I stumbled upon these two paintings separately, not realizing at first that they were created by the same artist. I think the two paintings display just the most wonderful contrast in mood and story. A hushed, almost painful restraint in one, a completely relaxed and happy lightness in the other. The compositions and lighting and coloration only underscore the contrast. One, save the blue at the window, is almost entirely monochromatic, the composition carefully theatrical. While the color and arrangement of details in the other seem quite random and naturalistic. Even the media highlights the difference, the thick and opaque oil paint versus the scratched pencil lines and transparent watercolor. Even in the choice and disposition of details. A large book - a bible or religious text? - gathering the brightest light, is the pensive monk's object of study and/or veneration. While, in the watercolor, a large book also plays a role; it serves as a posing block upon which the model rests his bare foot.

There were no dates available for either piece, but I suspect the watercolor may have been a later work. 

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Julien Renevier (19 May 1847, Lausanne - 8 January 1907, Lausanne), Swiss painter. Born into a wealthy and cultured family, he showed an early talent for drawing. Nevertheless, he went on to study theology at the Lausanne Academy, continuing his education in Berlin. But in 1872 he abandoned his studies at the Berlin Academy in order to devote himself fully to painting; he went on to complete his training in Munich. Then, in 1878, at the age of thirty-one, he left Munich for Italy. After visiting Venice, he settled in Rome, where he remained for eleven years, traveling regularly throughout Italy and France, with visits home to Switzerland. He exhibited frequently in his native country and also participated in the Paris Salons in 1883 and 1884, as well as in the Universal Exhibitions of 1889 and 1900. In 1889 he gave up his Roman studio and returned to Switzerland to care for his sick mother, but continued to exhibit. During the last twenty years of his life, he gradually abandoned painting in oils, turning instead to watercolor and pastel. He died of pneumonia at the age of fifty-nine.