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Raoul
Dufy

France • 1877−1953
He was accused of levity, saying, that in vain wasting talent. Dufy actually avoided by an image of the evils of society and flirting with the world and abyss of existential despair. He said: "If the holidays are so popular with people, why can't they like, to a sketch artist?". Elegant carelessness and joy of life - that's what wanted to write Dufy. Regattas and horse racing, thoroughbred horses and no less pedigreed gentlemen, elegant ladies and life as a holiday – such is the style of Raoul Dufy.

Raoul Dufy (FR. Raoul Dufy; June 3, 1877, Le Havre — 23 March 1953, Forcalquier) was the eldest son in a large family. Father Raul served in Le Havre accountant, and on weekends has become a choirmaster and organist in one of the churches. Mother worked with children. With 14 years Raul as the eldest child to help the family, began to work for a company that imports coffee. Sitting at the office window, overlooking the harbour, the boy drew her endlessly, ships, sea. Drew, note, great. Father look, look, and sent his son to evening class of the local School of fine arts. Teachers were of the view that the painter starts with a good painter, for which he later Dufy was very grateful, drew it really perfectly.

Young Raul managed and serve in the army for almost two years, and following his release in 1900, to learn the good news: the city of Le Havre decided to celebrate his success in painting scholarship. Where is Dufy? Of course, in Paris, where he works in the workshop Léon Bonnat. In the years to criticize academic training was, as we would say today, a trend. But Dufy did not follow him, on the contrary, argued that a classical education is first bound to, and then abandon it. It stood out and cool attitude to the pleasures of the Bohemian life.

Raoul Dufy consistently tried his hand in the major contemporary directions. In the early 1900's became interested in impressionism. In 1905, face-to-face with the Fauvism and thought is "it". Closer to the 1910-th year interested in cubismbut this story didn't last long. To find your style, Dufy will take about 15 years, and for a while he did leave the painting.

In 1910 Raoul Dufy married eugénie Brisson. About it, as about family life Dufy, is practically unknown. She is originally from nice. Worked in a haberdashery shop in Le Havre, where they met. Children they had. Eugenie survived her husband for 9 years and bequeathed a large gallery of his paintings to the Museum in nice. Actually, here is all the information about companion Raoul Dufy.

Married, the artist realized that though the painting is a good thing, but personally he still makes it impossible to support a family. He tries to behave in related ways, in particular, illustrates the poetry collection of Apollinaire's "Bestiary, or the Cortege of Orpheus". The famous Raoul Dufy was made by the fashion designer Paul Poiret, who invited him to design sketches, fabrics. Exquisite Parisians were not going to buy paintings by Dufy, but were willing to pay any money for scarves, made of developed tissue!

It turned out that Dufy not just decorates the fabric as if it were a canvas, he knows how to work with matter. A year later he was recruited by the Lyon manufacturing company of silk fabrics, he served as the chief artist finally began to get a very good salary. The first world war temporarily interrupted this idyll to fight Dufy did not go, and was engaged in creation of posters and engravings for magazines.

Only in 1920, the year has already become quite successful Raoul Dufy decided to rent a house on the Riviera and return to painting. Dufy feared that his paintings, in contrast to tissues will not be needed. But quiet comfortable life brought that lightness of being, the joy of life that he could now freely move on the canvas. The artist admitted that it is best written by the sea. In his paintings manifest a dominant blue color (1, 2). Dufy believed that blue is the only color that is able in any environment to maintain individuality.

The lack of demand in the past, now Dufy bought, called pleasant in all respects man and the artist, and his work has found a "charming and adorable". However, some critics have accused him of superficiality, levity. Dufy really delightfully unserious in his works. His graceful, aristocratic Muse is so not like disturbing the art of the avant-garde. Except that Matisse I set myself a goal "to calm a tired man"but realized it is, of course, quite different ways. Dufy shows a beautiful and rich, but absolutely devoid of pathos and pathetic, so beautiful it doesn't seem vulgar. Horse race, regatta, gentlemen of the highest order, exquisite ladies, the elegance and the negligence sought by women who know a lot about fashion. All this is in abundance in the paintings of Raoul Dufy. WithParisian elegance he painted the feast, ease, carelessness.

The audience appreciated it! They wanted a break from endless dissection ulcers, disclosure problems of society and the subconscious. Laid on the couch of a psychoanalyst, the society wanted to escape, yearning for beauty and lightness. Dufy gave them. The artist was awarded the Legion of honor, his personal exhibitions took place in Paris, Prague, Zurich, Brussels, new York.

New way is implemented and experience Dufy fabrics. From shiny silk, it goes to a heavy tapestries and carpets, what achieves success, surpassing even attempt more ambitious painters. Matisse, Rouault, Picasso and Braque to order Marie Cuttoli (a prominent art collector and the wife of the French Senator) were transferred to the carpet painting. Dufy was able to create exactly carpet compositions, taking into account the specifics of the product.

One of the most important works of Raoul Dufy's huge mural "Fairy of electricity" for the Palace of electricity at the Paris world exhibition of 1937. A huge mural with an area of 600 sq m, consisted of 250 plywood panels. The height of each block is 10 meters, width of panels made up of 60 meters. Panel shows the entire history of electricity development at the time of creation. It is now partly exhibited at the Paris Museum of modern art, partially stored in the vaults.

The trouble came in 1938, Dufy ill articular rheumatism, and the disease rapidly progressed. By the end of the 1940s he was no longer able to hold a brush in hand and parted with the idea of painting. The salvation came from America – Dr. Freddie Homburger invited him to a Boston hospital and using new methods of treatment, returned him to health. Now Raoul Dufy perfect climate of Arizona – hot and dry, but the artist stayed there for only a year, and in 1952 returned to France, where he took pneumonia, completely undermined his health.

"Together with Raoul Dufy from our life is gone the joy of being"– such words were heard at his funeral. It is not, because the race and looking at them, the aristocrats, the blue sea and the sky and the holidays that are so loved painting Dufy, – remained.

Author: Alain Esaulova

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