Achille Laugé
Neo-Impressionist 1861-1944
Barbara Dordi
A5 paperback 76 pages 20 illustrations
ISBN 978-0-9536800-5-4
£9.95 or €15.00 (Including Postage) from
B. Dordi
11, Bath Road,
Emsworth, Hants
PO10 7EP
In south-west France near Carcassonne in the Aude, a small village calls itself ‘Cailhau village d’Artistes’. Cailhau’s first artist was Achille Laugé. His Pointillist style paintings and drawings disconcerted the locals in the late 19th/early 20th century. He chose to live his life with his own people, and they as well as the Salons in Paris didn’t accept him.
‘Laugé was a skilled portraitist, able to achieve an almost perfect likeness of any sitter, whether executed in charcoal, pastel or paint….’Achille Astre - The Achille Astre Gallery, Paris. ‘Laugé’s art is emotional sensitivity and controlled reason.’ - Aristide Maillol, Painter and Sculptor. ‘He is a constructer of light’ - Antoine Bourdell - sculptor & painter.‘With only four colours, red, blue, yellow and green, he sang his native country’ - Albert Sarraut - twice prime minister of France.
The friends he studied with at the École des Beaux -Arts in Paris - sculptors Antoine Bourdelle and Aristide Maillol each went on to achieve fame during his lifetime. Laugé’s relative isolation in the Languedoc-Roussillon meant that his work remained largely unknown to most French scholars, critics and collectors of his time.
Now the art world has woken up to the talent of this recluse - his time, as his friend Antoine Bourdelle predicted years ago, has come at last. Today, paintings by Laugé hang in the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris alongside Neo-Impressionist works by Seurat and Signac. Laugé’s paintings have found a home not only in musées in France but in collections throughout the world.
Foreword by Anny Laugé - the artist’s great-granddaughter
FOREWORD
It is with pleasure that I present this book which constitutes an opportunity for our English speaking friends.
The author Barbara Dordi, poet, editor and presenter of writing workshops, and a new inhabitant of Cailhau, was moved by the paintings of Achille Laugé during the 2009 exhibitions of his work.
She began to gather information about the painter from documentation available and patiently summarized all that constitutes the life and work of my great-grandfather Achille Laugé.
Given the growing number of English speaking newcomers to this area, it is evident that this book will be a very favourable means for them to be better acquainted with the Impressionist painter Achille Laugé.
It is likely that many readers will want to come to Cailhau to discover the Achille Laugé circuit where they can enjoy some of the scenery celebrating the Languedocian light that the Master captured so often.
I thank Barbara Dordi for her work which highlights the work of Achille Laugé. Happy reading.
Anny Laugé
Great-granddaughter of Achille Laugé
