Fernand Harvey Lungren (1857–1932)

FERNAND HARVEY LUNGREN (1857–1932)
The Gardens of Luxembourg, about 1882–84
Oil on canvas, 30 1/2 x 58 1/8 in. 
Signed (at lower right): Lungren / [artist monogram] FHL
 

RECORDED: Elizabeth A. Brown, “The Art of Fernand Lungren,” American Art Review 13 (April 2001), pp. 198, 199 illus. in color

EXHIBITED: University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara; The Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, California; and Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, California, 2000–01, Afterglow in the Desert: The Art of Fernand Lungren, no. 2, pp. 17, 49 pl. 1 illus. in color [image reversed] // Spanierman Gallery, New York, 2001, 110 Years of American Art: 1830–1940, p. 43 pl. 34 illus. in color // Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, 2003, Americans in Paris, 1850–1910: The Academy, the Salon, the Studio, and the Artist’s Colony, p. 93 no. 74 illus. in color

EX COLL.: W. Cable, Lausanne, Switzerland; Martha Rankin, Palm Beach, Florida; J. Valdes, West Palm Beach, Florida; private collection, until 2014

Lungren painted The Gardens of Luxembourg during his two years in Paris. It is one of the largest and most compositionally complex paintings from this early period. The painting’s restricted palette, limited largely to the broad expanse of gravel in the foreground and the green and blue bands of trees and sky above, is particularly striking. This relatively limited palette, however, was home territory for Lungren the illustrator, who successfully grappled with the challenge of evoking mood and telling stories with means limited to line and a spectrum of tones. Prior to his adoption of southwest vistas as his preeminent subjects, Lungren specialized in urban scenes, among them a handful of outdoor park scenes. In The Gardens of Luxembourg, Lungren’s subject was, of course, a favorite of impressionist painters of all nations, capturing a “slice of life” happened upon in the course of everyday life in the French capital. It was on the basis of subjects like this, and not painting style or color palette, that Lungren identified himself as an impressionist: “I call myself an ‘impressionist’ because of my way of looking at things, for there can be no resemblance in my handling with the early technique of the first impressionists.”

The gardens of the Palais du Luxembourg in Paris were (and still are) a popular place for Parisians to enjoy a period of civilized quietude amidst the busy environs of the city. The gardens had been extensively remodeled in the 1860s, becoming more formal in affect and style. At the time Lungren executed this painting, the palace itself was the home of the French state’s contemporary art museum, the Musée du Luxembourg. For an artist like Lungren, the gardens, teeming with vignettes from everyday urban life. represented a quintessentially modern subject. The panoramic format of the painting allowed Lungren to populate his canvas with a variety of self-contained groups of figures