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Jean-Charles Joseph RÉMOND
(Paris 1795 - Paris 1875)
The surroundings of Palermo
Oil on paper, mounted on canvas
H. 48 cm; L. 37 cm
Signed and dated lower right - 1842
Located and dated on the back "Palermo - August 1842".
The son of a printer, Rémond soon became a pupil of Regnault, in 1810, but it was Jean-Victor Bertin (his master at the Beaux-Arts de Paris in 1812), who steered him straight on (between 1814 and 1816, Rémond abandoned painting at the insistence of his parents, in favor of a commercial activity) towards the Grand Prix de Rome for historical landscape in 1821 with Proserpine and Pluto. This excellent draughtsman had a precise, polished touch that suited the rules of the genre. But as soon as he arrived in Rome, he discovered nature and plein-air painting; during this first Italian stay, which lasted five years, he painted numerous small-format studies, with a touch that sometimes became broader and creamier, and a great quality of luminosity.
His subjects ranged from the sites within the walls of the Eternal City to the countryside and more mountainous areas; he also went as far as Naples and Paestum.
On his return to Paris, Rémond discovered his pedagogical inclinations, and at the same time as opening a studio in 1827 (where he trained Théodore Rousseau, among others), he published two theoretical treatises, "Principes de paysages" and "Cours complet de paysages", just as Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes and Alphonse Mandevare had done before him.
In 1842, Rémond returned to Italy for several months, lingering particularly in Sicily. He ended his career with landscapes of Normandy and Ile-de-France, with a final Salon appearance in 1848.
From his Sicilian sojourn in 1842, the painter brought back several works painted from the motif, and drawings that served as models in the studio. It was in August that he produced this oil on paper, which was certainly already transposed onto canvas and stretcher at the time. On the back, in Rémond's handwriting, we find the location in Palermo and the date. It is on the heights of the famous Sicilian city that he sketches this vertical landscape, fortified by the mass of ochre rock that becomes the subject. In the foreground, flowering agaves with their characteristic waxy hue stand out, nestling in the crevices of this mountainous landscape. In the misty distance, we glimpse a fortress perched on its pedestal.
