Conserving a late 19th century French Painting by Henri Thierot
Landscape with Buildings, Henri Thierot, Oil on Linen, After conservation
Henri Thierot was a French painter active in the late 19th century (1863-1905). While not a lot is known about his life, his artistic talent is evident in the work he left behind. Many of his paintings depict the nude female form in a landscape at dusk. His work can be labeled as both French Naturalism and Symbolism. It is Naturalism in its raw application of paint and the depiction of unidealized landscapes. However, the figures in his work are classically posed and the tonal and surreal colors suggest a symbolic interpretation making his work also aligned with Symbolism. Like many great painters that have been nearly forgotten in art history his work defies a single category.
A few things stand out about this painting. The first is the pinkish yellow tones in the sky which act as a compliment to the rich warm olive greens in the grassy foreground. The overall dark and warm tones in his painting do more than depict a moment at dusk, it gives the viewer a real sense of the moment before dusk when the light plays tricks on your eyes. It is a disorientating moment when you can’t tell if you can see well or not.
Close-up of Henri Thierot’s Landscape showing the thin outlines
I also find the thin dark outlines around the trees and the buildings very interesting. Throughout art history there are examples of artists being modern before modern was a thing and to me this is another example of it. These black outlines show how Thierot narrows his subject matter down to its essential characteristics. In some places there is only an outline of an object and in others the outlines are filled in with solid color.
Close-up of Henri Thierot’s Landscape showing the thin outlines
The lines appear to be made with pen and ink, but I question if it is ink because they were not susceptible to solvent when I removed the old varnish.. It is also evident that this painting was originally intended to be a wider painting because the left and right of the canvas were painted while the top and bottom were just gessoed canvas. The artist must have decided to cut it down. I had originally thought that this painting might have been a sketch because of the thin black outlines and the scarcity of painting in the foreground. However the labels on the back show that it was exhibited during the artist’s lifetime.
For this landscape by Thierot I simply cleaned it, removed the varnish and then applied a new varnish. The old varnish had yellowed quite a bit making the painting appear darker than it was intended to be. Although the yellowing of a varnish often adds a harmonizing quality to paintings by adding a common yellow or amber tone over the entire surface, it also darkens the surface which is most evident in the lighter values in the sky. Now that it has been conserved I believe the quality of this painting is more evident.