Virtuosity of the gesture, delicacy of the colors, today our gaze stops on a work by Julie Buchet, Les Roses Trémières. This painting, witness to the artist's love for nature, is the favorite that Olivier Colonna invites us to discover.
Born Julie Marie Clémence Lainé in Bourges, Julie Buchet lived for a time in Paris during her youth. She worked there as a painting restorer at the Louvre Museum, which will keep one or two of her personal works. She will then retire with her husband to Le Noyer near Bourges, where she will practice her art throughout her life.
Julie Buchet was a member of the association of women painters and sculptors, an association which worked to have the work of women artists recognized, in a society where it was then impossible for them to access artistic education and very difficult to present their work at the Official Salon.
Julie Buchet's work is remarkable and endowed with a very accurate sense of line, composition and color. She particularly excelled in still lifes to which she always adds a lot of detail. Gloves, feathers, letters, envelopes… All his paintings tell a pretty story.
She was also a portraitist comparable to the best of her time, a discipline taught to her by Léon Bonnat and Gérôme, firefighter painters who excelled in this art and whose Parisian workshops she frequented.
We can regret in his work the few paintings of seascapes and landscapes. The rare examples that she left present a dynamic of colors and magnificent atmospheres. Her drawings and watercolors reveal a great mastery of drawing and a taste for composition. The critics of the time were almost unanimous in hailing this exceptionally gifted artist. An art critic admiring one of his works even goes so far as to write that this painting is considered to be the work of a man, so boldly and virtuously is it painted. Compliment which, 100 years ago, was the most beautiful praise that one could address to a woman...
The painting Les Roses Trémières has always been kept in the family home of Julie Buchet in the Cher. Sincere in style and freer than the academic floral compositions of its time, this work is almost an exercise showing the different stages in the life of a flower. Soft green buds, blooming and dazzling flowers, browned and withered leaves are proof of a real love of nature beyond great virtuosity.
