Paul Jean Clays (1817-1900) - The Tuna Boatmen oil on mahogany panel circa 1864
He knows how to give his seascapes harmony and grandeur. A sort of penetrating melancholy envelops all of the works that Mr. Clays painted. One feels that the painter did not only utilize his hand; that he puts in the works that come from his thoughts the enthusiasm that seized him before he created the works. The artist is more than a virtuoso; he a contemplator, a man who feels moved by the presence of Nature which is so beautiful, so imposing, so difficult to translate, that even the most convinced hesitate before attempting it.
Eugène Montrosier, Les Artistes Modernes: Peintres de Genre (Paris, Librairie Ch. Tallandier), pg. 39.
Paul Jean Clays is Flemish in his manner of painting; and in his choice of landscapes is somewhat like the Dutch. He does not paint the sea, but the Scheldt where it widens, and those gray and light waters which bear you in a steamer from Moerdyk to Rotterdam. With a proud feeling for these things, he expresses in the calme plat, in the gros temps, the humidity of the skies of Western Flanders, the sleep of the calmed water, or the caress, sometimes menacing, of the breeze which makes little, uneasy waves shiver around the Koffs loaded to the brim. The water has found in Clays a marvelously exact painter; he gives it movement, limpidity, life; and, with happy talent, he knows the spots where the sun’s rays cross it to fill it with light.
With his palette of colors and his technique, Paul Jean Clays, offers us a magnificent painting, we dive into the scene and assist in the real departure of the tuna boats in the middle of the 19th century. A sky that would like to let its beautiful blue hue pass, but that the clouds darken, the color and transparency of the sea are affected by this changing sky, suggesting that a sustained breeze has settled.
In this atmosphere, the sailors on the water or on the boat are getting ready for an imminent departure.
Very nice painting, between genre scene and landscape, in very good condition, signed in the lower right corner by Paul Jean Clays, served by a beautiful carved and gilded wooden frame.
Measurements with frame: H 18.48 In. - W 15.94 In.
Measurements unframed: H 26.77 In. - W 22.83 In.
The curators of many museums around the world collect the paintings of this excellent Belgian painter.
Biography:
Paul Jean Clays, painter of Belgian nationality, was born in Bruges on November 20, 1817, or 1819 and died in Schaerbeek on February 9, 1900.
As a young man, attracted by the sea, he joined small boats as a ship's boy. He wanted to learn about estuaries and the sea.
His eyes were quickly formed, and he grasped the colors that the water takes as the hours passed.
He studied in Paris with Charles Suisse and Theodore Gudin.
Paul Jean Clays was one of the first to refute the conventions of the Academy and a whole generation followed him. He was also one of the first to pave the way for realism and to shake, in the minds of his contemporaries, the absurd dogma of the hierarchy of genres.
"His paintings are all distinguished by the freshness of appearance, the charm of tone, the transparent softness, and the calmness of their expression. Blue, reddish-brown, and yellowish-white are the three dominant ranges. It is with these unique forces that the artist combines a shimmering harmony with an effect all the more attractive because the qualities of magnificent, smooth, supple, and brilliant workmanship contribute largely to enhance its brilliance." Such is the admiring testimony of Edmond-Louis de Taye, professor of art history at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp.
For the record, the municipality of Schaerbeek has named one of its streets Avenue Clays.
Bibliography:
Eugène de Sevn, Dictionnaire biographique des sciences, des lettres et des arts en Belgique, Ed. L’Avenir, Bruxelles, 1935.
Eugène Montrosier, Les Artistes Modernes : Peintres de Genre, Paris, Librairie Ch. Tallandier.
Lexique des peintres romantiques belges, Anvers : International Art Press, 1981.
Dictionary of Sea Painters, E.H.H. Archibald.
Museums:
Musees de Beaux Arts, Antwerp; Musee Royaux des Beaux Arts de Belgique, Brussels; Leicester Museums and Art Gallery; Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield; The Metropolitan Museum, New York; The National Gallery, London; Musée Royal de l’Armée Paris.
