Semester
Spring
Date of Graduation
2019
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
MA
College
College of Creative Arts
Department
Art History
Committee Chair
Rhonda Reymond
Committee Co-Chair
Kristina Olson
Committee Member
Kristina Olson
Committee Member
Janet Snyder
Abstract
This thesis examines the landscape paintings of Jean-Louis Rouméguère (1863-1925), who was active in southwestern France in the early twentieth century. Rouméguère, who also had a brief Parisian career, was a fervently independent artist whose work nonetheless shows the varied influences of the Barbizon school, the Impressionist movement, and even classical landscape techniques. Working exclusively in the regions stretching from Auvergne to the Pyrenees, Rouméguère created atmospheric, somatically-appealing paintings that experimented with pushing small scale to an extreme. The artist’s work demonstrates his quest to capture the intense, ever-shifting light of his region while maintaining a sense of harmony and verité; ideas that culminated in his “Conférence sur une Tentative de Peinture Scientifique” presented and published in Paris in 1906, in which Rouméguère explained the key tenets of what can be described as a practical color theory. In his writing, Rouméguère revealed both the methodology that guided his work and the depth of feeling that inspired it, a combination which allowed him to strike a delicate balance between “science” and poetry in his rendering of the fields and forests of the Gersois countryside, Auvergne in the Massif Central, and especially the crags and peaks of the Pyrenees.
Today, Rouméguère is virtually unknown outside of his hometown of Auch, where over three hundred of his paintings are held in the collection of the Musée des Jacobins. Through research conducted at the museum and in regional and national archives, this thesis restores the artist’s historical reputation as a significant painter of his region who adroitly captured not only the landscape but the atmosphere of France’s southwest, illuminating by extension the rich and understudied contributions of various artists and movements of this region.
Recommended Citation
Wheeler, Elizabeth Ann, "Chercheur de Lumière: The Art of Jean-Louis Rouméguère (1863-1925)" (2019). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 3840.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/3840
Included in
Modern Art and Architecture Commons, Other History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons