Brief Report

The painting is rigorously and regularly laid-in with rectangular and mostly horizontal patches of colour applied in a mosaic-like fashion in a single layer on a pale ground which can be seen between each of them. Starting from an outline of the composition with a colour matching the area in question, Laugé carefully filled out the fields of colour. The pure, strong colours of the foreground were lightened for the regions of the sky and the water by adding white. It is only for the first outlining, and the execution of details such as those of the trees, the plants on the bank and the people, that the direction and rhythm of the otherwise largely uniform brushwork varies. The airy mood of the painting is enhanced by the visibility of the pale ground, although the character of these unpainted areas has been changed by a restoration in the past (figs 3, 10, 12).

Achille Laugé
Promenade on the Riverside, 1888, oil on canvas, 34.5 x 44.0 cm, WRM Dep. FC 757

Achille Laugé

born on 29 August 1861 in Arzens (Aude), Languedoc,
died on 2 June 1944 in Cailhau (Aude), near Carcassone

Brief report with complete data as downloadable pdf-file

Further illustrations:

Fig. 02

Verso


Fig. 03

UV fluorescence


Fig. 04

Raking light


Fig. 05

Detail in raking light


Fig. 06

Detail, sticker


Fig. 07

Detail with line of horizon


Fig. 08

Detail for the composition of the tree Laugé uses small,  dynamic dabs of the brush


Fig. 09

Execution of the face of a person in the foreground; very small  dabs of the brush applied wet-in-wet, microscopic photograph  (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 10

Yellow dabs of the brush, with abrasion, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 11

Browned remains of varnish, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 12

Heavily abraded ground, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)