Pastel - The genius of René-Claude Millot

"Marriage of love of color and design" according to José Maria de Heredia, the pastel fascinates by its chalky texture and by the brilliance of its tints. Particularly appreciated by Millot, just like gouache, pastel allows him, in a few touches of color, to evoke a familiar situation, to brush the oval of a face or to make the sweetness of an autumn landscape. Designed initially to enhance the drawings of a few flat areas of color, pastel becomes a major art between the eighteenth and nineteenth century. How can one forget the striking portraits of Maurice Quentin de la Tour, the precision of Jean-Etienne Liotard, or, a century later, Edgar Degas and his dancers with their twirling and vibrant tutus, or Odilon Redon and his dreamy colors, Irradiating and bright? For it is indeed these great painters whose work René-Claude Millot has assimilated and which he has in mind when he begins to paint the colors of the South-East, bunches of flowers or the profiles of children concentrated on their little rabbits.

Millot, our contemporary, who died in 1978, knows well the legacy of Russel, Boudin, Millet, Whistler or Edouard Manet; he knows how to exploit the fluidity of the pastel to reduce the shape to a few traits and create relief by color. He will also use this talent for his gouaches and canvases, as a great painter of the intimate and scenes taken on the spot. We are pleased to offer you a series of gouaches, paintings and pastels of Millot thanks to our partner, the sales house Pays de Fayence Enchères. Do not hesitate to bid, Millot is a master, whose evocative force resonates long after one has seen his sketches.

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