Dear Friends of Art,
During the past month we worked hard to prepare materials on some Pointillist
painters. We've succeeded in introducing the collections of Georges
Seurat, Paul Signac, Henri-Edmond
Cross, Maximilien Luce, Georges
Lemmen, Theo Van Rysselberghe,
Charles Angrand. The arrival
of this trend, called Neo-Impressionism, Pointillism or Divisionism, caused
a scandal equal to that caused by Impressionism in its time. The only art
critic, who admired and greeted the new art was Félix Fénéon
(1861-1944), an officer at the Ministry of Defense, intellectual, journalist
and ardent devotee of art. Today's story is about him.
Fénéon's love for art was absolute, and even formed his
political tastes. The failure by the "bourgeois" society to understand
the real artists, its admiration with commonplace hacks, 'sugary masters
of schools and academies', and its accusation of new and fresh trends -
all this was enough for Fénéon to justify the destruction
of that society. Fénéon approved of Anarchistic propaganda,
even its extreme forms, which called for action using bombs.
Some works by Impressionists hang on the walls of his study in the
Ministry of Defense. Later, when Anarchists' terrorist attacks shocked
France,
some explosives would be found in the same study.
Strange as it might seem to us now, many artists, including Paul Signac,
Camille and Lucien Pissarro, Maximilien Luce, Théo van Rysselberghe,
and others not only justified and glorified Anarchists, but supported them
financially.
Signac wrote that once Fénéon analyzed the logic of Anarchists'
attacks: the one at the stock exchange was against the bourgeoisie, others
were against the army, deputies, representatives of power, one more seemed
most strange and illogical, because it involved innocent civilians. Fénéon
denoted the last attack as an act against electors. He considered that
the terrorist act against electors was the most 'anarchistic' because electors
were more guilty than the elected, who only fulfill the electors' will.
In March of 1892 French police talked about Fénéon as
an'active Anarchist', they had him shadowed. In April his apartment and
office in the Military Ministry were searched. Police found some explosives
and Fénéon was arrested and imprisoned. Preliminary investigation
ended on June 8, and the case was handed down to the jury.
In summer of 1892 Fénéon together with other intellectuals,
publishers and journalists of the Anarchists' media, among others was Maximilien
Luce, appeared in court. The case was called the Trial of the Thirty. All
the arguments the police gave against the thirty did not meet jury's approval
and on August 12, Fénéon and the majority of the other defendants
were discharged.
Despite
the discharge the police didn't believe in Fénéon's innocence.
Once the prefect told Mme Fénéon who came to complain that
the police continued shadowing her husband, "Madam, I'm sorry to say this,
but you've married a killer.'
The Military Ministry fired M Fénéon, of course. His
lawyer T. Natanson, offered him a post as editorial secretary of his 'La
Revue Blanche". He worked for the magazine until 1903, and also organized
exhibitions. In 1906-1925 Fénéon was the Director of the
Bernheim-Jeune art gallery. His sharp remarks and snobbism towards 'bad
taste' might have repelled customers, but his unmistakable sense for real
art, his inability to cheat while selling items of art attracted them.
If he offered to buy an item of art, it meant that he admired it himself.
In 1925, when Fénéon was 63, he said to one of his friends,
'I am ready for idleness' and left the gallery. Publishers and art historians
attacked him with offers to write memoirs, Fénéon refused.
He refused to re-issue his only book 'Impressionism in 1886', refused to
issue a collection of his journalistic essays. He prepared a catalogue
of Seurat's works, but refused to put his name as the author.
'It's so silly to go on living, when you're 78 (or 79, or 80, or 81)'
he often said. During his last year he burnt all the documents and papers
he had in his possession and presented most of his collection to friends.
Félix Fénéon died on February 29, 1944.