Cross, Henri Edmond [Delacroix, Henri-Edmond-Joseph]
(b Douai, 20 May 1856; d Saint-Clair, 16 May 1910).
The only surviving child of Alcide Delacroix,
a French adventurer and failed businessman, and the British-born
Fanny Woollett, he was encouraged as a youth to develop his artistic
talent by his father’s cousin, Dr Auguste Soins. He enrolled
in 1878 at the Ecoles Académiques de Dessin et d’Architecture
in Lille, where he remained for three years under the guidance
of Alphonse Colas (1818–87). He then moved to Paris and studied
with Emile Dupont-Zipcy (1822–65), also from Douai, whom
he listed as his teacher when exhibiting at Salons of the early
1880s. His few extant works from this period are Realist portraits
and still-lifes, painted with a heavy touch and sombre palette
(example in Douai, Musée Municipal)
To avoid working under the shadow of his celebrated
namesake, Eugène Delacroix, in 1881 he adopted an abbreviated
English version of his surname, signing his works ‘Henri
Cross’ until around 1886, when he adopted ‘Henri Edmond
Cross’ to avoid being confused with the painter Henri Cros.
 |
Coast near Antibes, 1891/1892
John Hay Whitney Collection |
In 1884 Cross helped to found the Société
des Artistes Indépendants and through it became friends
with many of the Neo-Impressionists. However, he only gradually
assimilated avant-garde stylistic innovations. He lightened his
palette and began painting figures en plein air in the mid-1880s.
Monaco (1884; Douai, Mus. Mun.) reveals his study of both Jules
Bastien-Lepage and Manet. Towards the end of the decade, when
he was increasingly influenced by Monet and Pissarro, he began
to paint pure landscapes.
|
|
Portrait de Mme Cross, 1891
Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
Cross’s career took a decisive turn in 1891,
when he adopted the Neo-Impressionist technique and showed at
the Indépendants exhibition his first large work in this
style, the portrait of Mme H. F. (now titled portrait of Mme Cross;
Paris, Mus. d’Orsay). Also in this year, he moved to the
south of France, staying first at Cabasson and then settling in
Saint-Clair, a small hamlet near St Tropez where Signac also took
up residence in 1892. Cross lived in Saint-Clair for the rest
of his life, travelling twice to Italy (1903 and 1908) and annually
to Paris for the Indépendants shows.
|
|
Evening Breeze, 1893-94,
Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
In the early and mid-1890s, as he developed the
Neo-Impressionist method, Cross concentrated on seascapes and
scenes of peasants at work. The Beach of Baigne-Cul (1891–2;
Chicago, IL, A. Inst.) is characteristic of his highly regular
technique: over a densely painted ground he placed small and relatively
round touches in rows, more or less equally spaced, and mixed
colours with white to express the bleaching action of sunlight.
The Farm (Evening) (1893; priv. col., see Compin, p. 129) exhibits
his decorative use of sensuous silhouettes and recalls the Japanese
prints and Art Nouveau designs that inspired other Neo-Impressionists
at this time.
|
|
Les Cyprés à Cagnes, 1908
Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
After the mid-1890s Cross ceased to depict peasants
but continued to paint seascapes while exploring such new subjects
as the everyday dances shown in Village Dance (1896; Toledo, OH,
Mus. A.). Working with his neighbour Signac, he gradually abandoned
the dot of earlier Neo-Impressionism and employed instead large
and blocky strokes; this technique allowed for intense colour
contrasts and created decisively decorative, mosaic-like surfaces.
Now associated with the so-called ‘second’ Neo-Impressionist
style, these developments inspired Matisse and the other Fauves
who visited the south of France in the early 1900s. Also influential
on these painters were the nude bathers and mythological figures,
particularly the nymphs and fauns, which Cross introduced into
his late seascapes.
|
|
The Church of Santa Maria
degli Angely Near Assisi, 1909
State Museum of New Western Art, Moscow |
Cross shared the utopian and anarchist beliefs of many of the
Neo-Impressionists. In 1896 he contributed an anonymous lithograph
entitled The Wanderer (see Compin, p. 337) to Jean Grave’s
anarchist publication, Temps nouveaux. Later he created cover
illustrations for several brochures issued by the same journal.
Interpretations of Cross’s large painting, the Air of Evening
(1893–4; Paris, Mus. d’Orsay), have stressed the presence
of anarchist-inspired sentiments. Like Signac’s In the Time
of Harmony (Montreuil, Mairie) from the same period, Cross’s
depiction of languorous seaside leisure seems designed to suggest
the joy that would be unleashed by anarchy.
The comparatively small size of Cross’s
oeuvre can be partly attributed to his ill health. Eye problems,
which emerged in the early 1880s, worsened in the early 1900s,
and bouts of arthritis also kept him from working. Nonetheless,
during the last decade of his life he mounted important one-man
shows in Paris (Galerie Druet, 1905; Bernheim-Jeune, 1907) and
as a result began finally to find a market and enthusiastic critical
response.
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- • Exposition H.-E. Cross (exh. cat.,
preface E. Verhaeren; Paris, Gal. Druet, [1905])
- • Exposition Henri-Edmond Cross
(exh. cat., preface M. Denis; Paris, Bernheim-Jeune, 1907);
preface repr. in M. Denis: Théories (Paris, 1913, rev.
4/1920), pp. 157–60
- • C. Angrand: ‘Henri-Edmond
Cross’, Temps Nouv., xvi (23 July 1910), p. 7
- • E. Verhaeren: ‘Henri Edmond
Cross’, Nouv. Rev. Fr. (July 1910), pp. 44–50; repr.
in E. Verhaeren: Sensations (Paris, 1927), pp. 204–8
- • Exposition Henri-Edmond Cross
(exh. cat., preface M. Denis; Paris, Bernheim-Jeune, 1910);
preface repr. in M. Denis: Théories (Paris, 1913, rev.
4/1920), pp. 161–5
- • L. Cousturier: ‘H.-E. Cross’,
A. Déc., xxix (1913), pp. 117–32; as book (Paris,
1932)
- • F. Fénéon, ed.:
‘Le Dernier Carnet d’Henri-Edmond Cross’ and
‘Inédits d’Henri-Edmond Cross’, Bull.
Vie A., iii, 10–22 (1922)
- • M. Saint-Clair [M. van Rysselberghe]:
‘Portrait du peintre Henri-Edmond Cross’, Nouv. Rev.
Fr., liii (1939), pp. 123–7; repr. in M. Saint-Clair: Galerie
privée (Paris, 1947), pp. 25–38
- • J. Rewald, ed.: H.-E. Cross: Carnet
de dessins, 2 vols (Paris, 1959) [sketchbook facs.]
- • R. Herbert and E. Herbert: ‘Artists
and Anarchism’, Burl. Mag., cii (1960), pp. 473–82
- • I. Compin: H.-E. Cross (Paris,
1964) [cat. rais. and detailed bibliog.]
© MARTHA WARD: 'Cross, Henri-Edmond',
The Grove Dictionary of Art Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed 27 March
2003) <http://www.groveart.com>
|
