id: 103789 accession number: 1921.83 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1921.83 updated: 2024-03-26 01:56:47.655000 Pastoral Scene, 1911. René Ménard (French, 1862–1930). Oil on fabric; unframed: 177.8 x 250 cm (70 x 98 7/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph King 1921.83 title: Pastoral Scene title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1911 creation date earliest: 1911 creation date latest: 1911 current location: creditline: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph King copyright: --- culture: France, 20th century technique: oil on fabric department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960 type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * René Ménard (French, 1862–1930) - artist Ménard grew up in a profoundly artistic and intellectual milieu. His father, René-Joseph Ménard (1827-1887), painted landscapes but was more known as a writer and art critic who headed the Gazette des Beaux-Arts. Through his father, Ménard met the painters of the Barbizon school. His uncle-chemist, pagan philosopher, and writer Louis Ménard (1822-1901)-was characterized by Théophile Gautier as an Athenian born two thousand years too late. Author of Rêveries d'un païen mystique (1876), Louis Ménard undoubtedly introduced his nephew to classical antiquity. After a two-year apprenticeship with the decorator Pierre-Victor Galland (1822-1892) that began in 1877, Ménard studied with Paul Baudry (1828-1886) and Bouguereau (q.v.). He then attended the Académie Julian in 1880 and began adopting a symbolist style. Ménard first exhibited at the Salon of 1883 and initially chose his subjects from the Bible and classical mythology. Soon, however, he chose to represent more generic visions of Arcadia. He first experienced the classical heritage on a trip to Sicily in 1898, the first of many such journeys to Greece, Italy, Algeria, and the Middle East. In 1906 he received a commission to decorate the library of the École des Hautes Études of the Sorbonne in Paris, followed by a cycle of large canvases for the law school of the University of Paris (1908-13, Musée d'Orsay, Paris). From then on he exhibited regularly in France and abroad, such as in the group exhibition of the Société Nouvelle in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1911. He moved from Paris to Varengeville near Dieppe. Ménard became loosely associated with a diverse group of artists called La Bande Noire, headed by Charles Cottet (1863-1925) and Lucien Simon (1861-1945). As opposed to the brighter palette of the impressionists, the group's name referred to the application of a more subdued color scheme and an interest in more melancholic subjects. But rather than the harsh lives of the peasants and fishermen that inspired Cottet, Ménard depicted the Breton landscape. He also belonged to the Société des Pastellistes Français; the pastel medium suited his taste for rendering twilight landscapes, especially later on in his career when he often stayed in Provence. His contemporaries placed Ménard in the French classical tradition, comparing him to such artists as Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), Claude Lorrain (1600-1682), and eventually Puvis de Chavannes (q.v.). --- measurements: Unframed: 177.8 x 250 cm (70 x 98 7/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Signed in lower right: E. R. Ménard 1911 translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * {'description': 'Buffalo, Albright Art Gallery; Art Institute of Chicago; Saint Louis Art Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Exhibition of Works by the Members of the Société des peintres et des sculpteurs (formerly the Société Nouvelle of Paris) (1911-12), no. 98, Bucolique.', 'opening_date': '1911-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'Possibly Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute. Sixteenth Annual Exhibition (1912), no. 220, Bucolique.', 'opening_date': '1912-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'Paris, Galerie Georges Petit. Exposition René Ménard (1914), no. 24, Bucolique.', 'opening_date': '1914-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute. Nineteenth Annual International Exhibition of Paintings (1920), no. 217, The Shepherds.', 'opening_date': '1920-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'Buffalo Fine Arts Academy/Albright Art Gallery. A Collection of Foreign Paintings from the Carnegie Institute International Exhibition, Supplemented by other foreign works, and a group of recent paintings by Auguste Émile René Ménard (1920), no. 60, The Shepherds, lent by Ralph King, Cleveland; exhibited with the smaller version, no. 68, Bucolique, lent by the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Albright Art Gallery.', 'opening_date': '1920-01-01T00:00:00'} --- PROVENANCE --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS "Accessions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 8, no. 2 (February 1921): 36-37. page number: Mentioned: P. 37 url: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1925. page number: Reproduced: p. 31 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook_80839/page/n33 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1928. page number: Reproduced: p. 38 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1928/page/n42 Argencourt, Louise d', and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 433-436, Vol. II, no. 150 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1921.83/1921.83_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1921.83/1921.83_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1921.83/1921.83_full.tif