Charles Victor Guilloux 1866-1946

CHARLES-VICTOR GUILLOUX – FRENCH SYMBOLIST PAINTER

A self-taught painter of the nineteenth century and an employee of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Charles Guilloux (1866–1946) caused a sensation in 1891 when he exhibited a series of landscapes for the first time at the Salon des Indépendants, works immediately noticed by the critic Claude Roger-Marx. Beginning the following year, he took part in every Exhibition of Impressionist and Symbolist Painters organized by the Le Barc de Boutteville gallery on rue Le Peletier in Paris, which later devoted two major monographic exhibitions to him, in 1896 and 1898.

LIFE AND WORKS OF CHARLES-VICTOR GUILLOUX

Guilloux dedicated himself exclusively to symbolist landscape, favoring a fundamentally synthetic manner imbued with a lyricism of strong emotional impact. Works such as Clair de lune en Bretagne [Moonlight in Brittany], c. 1910, or Paysage crépusculaire [Twilight Landscape], c. 1900 vibrate with an inner movement and a diffuse luminosity.

Standing in opposition to the luminous effects of Impressionism, the French Symbolist painter combined simplified forms with the use of vivid colors, drawing on the theory of simultaneous contrast articulated by Ernest Chevreul in 1839. From his earliest works, he captivated many collectors and prominent critics such as Gabriel-Albert Aurier, Félix Fénéon, and Rémy de Gourmont. At the 1892 Salon des Indépendants, Gustave Geoffroy thus praised Guilloux as the “landscape painter [who] attempts to make things speak a new language […] through waters and skies that echo one another, through solitudes where things take on a mysterious attitude.”