CASTAN, GUSTAVE EUGÈNE "Paysage avec torrent et... Lot 19

CASTAN, GUSTAVE EUGÈNE "Paysage avec torrent et bucherons (le nettoyage du torrent)". Oil on canvas, on hardboard, sig. u.l., 68x95 cm Literature: Valentina Anker, Gustave Castan (1823-1892), Geneva 1995, p. 43 (with full-page illustration). Gustave Eugène Castan showed extraordinary talent as a draftsman from an early age. His high-quality study sheets attracted the attention of Alexandre Calame, in whose studio he worked from 1843-1848. In 1845 Calame took a trip to Rome with his students, but it had no lasting effect on Castan. Far more than the sites of classical art, he was fascinated by his native mountain landscape, which he captured on canvas in large numbers during those years. In the winter of 1848/49 Castan traveled to Paris for the first time. From then on, he was drawn to France again and again, where, under the influence of the young French landscape painting, he abandoned the motif world of the Alps in favor of flat forest and river regions. Castan's high reputation in France is based not least on the fact that he was represented without interruption at the Paris Salon between 1855 and 1882. In 1864, a critic called him the "Daubigny of Switzerland." http://www.dobiaschofsky.com/d106--10019.html