id: 105480 accession number: 1923.602 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1923.602 updated: 2023-03-04 09:29:24.685000 Midnight, 1891. Jean-Charles Cazin (French, 1841–1901). Oil on fabric; framed: 113 x 112.4 x 11.4 cm (44 1/2 x 44 1/4 x 4 1/2 in.); unframed: 88 x 89 cm (34 5/8 x 35 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Charles W. Harkness Gift 1923.602 title: Midnight title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1891 creation date earliest: 1891 creation date latest: 1891 current location: creditline: The Charles W. Harkness Gift copyright: --- culture: France, 19th century technique: oil on fabric department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960 type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Jean-Charles Cazin (French, 1841–1901) - artist Jean Charles Cazin was educated in Boulogne-sur-Mer and England before completing his high-school degree in Lille. He had always shown artistic promise and by 1863 was living in Paris and submitting a landscape painting to the Salon des Refusés. He enrolled at the École Gratuite de Dessin, where he studied drawing under Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran (1802-1897), an innovative and unorthodox instructor who had developed his own teaching method based on drawing from memory. Many other young artists were attracted to his teaching style, including Fantin-Latour (q.v.), Alphonse Legros (1837-1911), and Auguste Rodin (1840-1917). Cazin's friendship with his mentor led to a teaching position at the École Spéciale d'Architecture in Paris, and he later became the director of the École de Dessin and curator of the museum in Tours. In 1871, after the devastation caused by the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), Cazin and his wife, Marie Guillet, an artist who had studied under Bonheur (q.v.), left for England. During this period he turned to the decorative arts and created ceramics influenced by Japonism. Cazin's pottery served to support his family during this time of postwar economic depression; he would eventually hire his own staff to produce the ceramics that he would then decorate. After the traditional tour of Italy and a short stay in Antwerp, he returned to France in 1875 and settled near Boulogne-sur-Mer. There he painted landscapes and the beaches of this coastal town. Cazin received the Légion d'Honneur in 1882, a gold medal at the Universal Exposition of 1889, and a Grand Prix in 1900. --- measurements: Framed: 113 x 112.4 x 11.4 cm (44 1/2 x 44 1/4 x 4 1/2 in.); Unframed: 88 x 89 cm (34 5/8 x 35 1/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Signed lower right: j. c. cazin. 91 translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Paris, Champ de Mars. Salon (1891), no. 181, Minuit (repr.).
Chicago. World's Columbian Exposition (1893), rev. cat., no. 3034, Midnight Moonlight, Abbeville, France, lent by Charles T. Yerkes, Chicago. --- PROVENANCE --- fun fact: Cazin preferred to paint in his studio using memory techniques learned in his artistic training which he later passed on to his own students. digital description: wall description: This painting depicts Abbeville, a city in northern France famous for its canals and architecture. It lies near the seaport of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Cazin's hometown and where he spent the last decades of his life painting the countryside, beaches, and nearby towns. Cazin specialized in landscapes, often influenced by his knowledge of English and Dutch painters. The title, Midnight, and the image itself suggest silence and stillness—Cazin's hallmarks—but only rarely did he attain this almost surrealistic atmosphere. Cazin was educated in Paris at the famous Ecole Gratuite de Dessins (Free School of Drawing), an innovative and unorthodox institution teaching drawing from memory. He studied there with fellow artists Henri Fantin-Latour (1836–1904), Auguste Rodin (1840–1917), and Alphonse Legros (1837–1911). They all shared an interest in Symbolism—the movement that sees symbols in reality and perceives reality through symbols. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS "Bequest of Mrs. Charles W. Harkness." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 4, no. 4 (1917): 63. page number: Mentioned: p. 63 url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25136090 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1925. page number: Reproduced: p. 30 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook_80839/page/n32 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1928. page number: Reproduced: p. 37 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1928/page/n41 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. 116-118, Vol. I, no. 44 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1923.602/1923.602_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1923.602/1923.602_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1923.602/1923.602_full.tif