Adolphe-Félix Cals Pastel Cliffs Near Dieppe Circa.1860

Adolphe-Félix Cals. (1810-1880). Attrib. French School 19th.Century. Pastel landscape drawing. Cliffs Near Dieppe. 9.25" x 11.75" (23.4 x 29.6cm). A variant of the current composition dated 1862 is held by the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge.  

Adolphe-Félix Cals celebrated 19th.Century French portrait, genre and landscape painter. Inspired by the work of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875) and Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819-1891), Cals worked in a manner more closely aligned with the Impressionists. As a plein-air painter, he is known for depicting slighty melancholic landscapes. He exhibited almost constantly at the Salon between 1835 and 1870. By 1846 Cals was critically acclaimed. Following a meeting with the art dealer ‘le Pére Martin’ (Pierre-Firmin Martin 1817-1891), the artist joined the Impressionist expositions to considerable success. By utilising short, regular and transparent strokes Cals’ work articulates the movement of air, or atmosphere, and thus expresses a great sense of place. Settling in Honfleur in 1873, Cals would frequent the ‘Saint-Simeon Farm’, an inn made famous as the meeting place for artists and writers, such as Claude Monet (1840-1926), Eugène Boudin (1824-1898), Jongkind and Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867).