Adolphe Monticelli, a precursor of impressionism in Uzès

Adolphe Monticelli, un peintre admiré par Van Gogh. – Tom Serrano

Uzès celebrates the 200th anniversary of the birth of the painter Adolphe Monticelli, a Marseille painter admired by Van Gogh. 

Van Gogh fans know this. When the Dutchman leaves the grey Parisian sky for the Provençal sun, it is in particular to find the light of the paintings of Adolphe Monticelli, in the spotlight this summer at the former bishopric of Uzès, with an exhibition put together by Marc Stammegna, one of the specialists of his work. In remarkably restored rooms, in order to definitively transform Uzès in the regional artistic landscape, the touch of the artist born fifty years before the birth of Impressionism in 1824 and who died in 1886, never ceases to amaze. Far from academicism, the thickening and the gestures announce the revolution to come.

The fifty or so paintings brought together reveal a virtuosity in the golden treatment of light, the frankness of colors, a passion, a modernity. He kneads the material, accumulates it, overturns it… Speaking of himself, Van Gogh mocked his adversaries who “claim the painter who sees with eyes other than theirs is mad”. He sees differently but he also looks elsewhere. Because Monticelli also announces Impressionism by the choice of his subjects. Representing himself as Mephisto in a self-portrait, he distances himself from academicism, also painting the simplicity of a cabin in the countryside, the return of fishermen or farmyard animals to capture a reality that escaped the Fine Arts of the time.

Until October 13. Wednesday to Sunday, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. and 1:30 p.m.-6 p.m. Former bishopric, Uzès. €9, €7 with the exhibition “Bugatti, a dynasty of creators”. 04 66 22 68 88. I subscribe to read the rest