In Quimperlé , Leech marvelously
evokes the feeling of a summer's day, sunlight that filters through the
woods and diffuses the distant landscape, and soft shadow in the flowery
meadow in the foreground through which the girl walks. The green of flowers,
violet of flowers and orange of the girl's dress are in perfect harmony.
There is an 'impressionistic' feel in the sense of air and sunshine, and
in the application of bright colors in small dabs. Among the Impressionists,
Sisley,
for instance, depicted scenes with geese. But the picture is carefully composed:
the receding horizontal layers of flowers are cut by the upright girl and
the vertical lines of the trees. The figure of the girl, as the geese, is
drawn with care and she is shown in close-up against the landscape. She
had an abstracted air, characteristic of plen-air
subjects.
The delicate 'mosaic-like' brushwork is not exactly typical of Leech,
and the picture is unsigned. There do not appear to be other Quimperlé
paintings by Leech, as he worked mainly at Concarneau. But he painted at
Quiper, Brest and other places in Brittany, and no doubt would have been
curious to see Quimperlé where his teacher Osborne had painted twenty-five
years earlier. |
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