Le seuil fleuri

Le Sidaner first visited Gerberoy in 1900, attracted to the tranquility of the region; the painter moved to the medieval town the following year. Though he traveled extensively during the winter and summer months, Le Sidaner made Gerberoy his permanent residence until his death in 1939. The gardens and terraces of his home and the nearby village were his preferred subjects. Inspired by the en plein air landscapes of Claude Monet, Le Sidaner crafted careful studies of his subjects from nature, and then returned to his studio to further develop their compositions. Like Monet, who found limitless inspiration from his carefully constructed garden at Giverny, Le Sidaner devoted ceaseless attention to the grounds surrounding his home, a lovingly restored monastery. Employing uneven, dappled brushstrokes, the artist creates a nostalgic, atmospheric glowing light throughout his paintings while the pastel palette conjures a romantic, mysterious world of intimate sentimentality. The critic Jacques Bashet commented that Le Sidaner "is a pointillist, but not the kind who decomposes tones and applies them unmixed, thereby letting our eyes reconstitute the colors on our retina. His palette is extremely varied and subtle. The oils bind and melt together in highly delicate harmonies...contours seem to emerge from the interplay of light, and in this respect, he is similar to Claude Monet" (quoted in Y. Farinaux-Le Sidaner, op. cit., p. 37).