Albert Lebourg

Born in Montfort-sur-Risle, Albert Lebourg was a French painter characterized by the epithet "minor master," with all that this expression conveys in the way of talent, refinement, and reserve. He did not play the revolutionary role of the great Impressionists, but he fully understood their poetic quality and the benefits they brought, especially to landscape painting. He was a pupil at the Rouen Art School - explain the harmony between his sensibility and the landscapes of the Seine Valley. Between 1872 and 1877, during his stay in Algiers and in the tradition of Monet, he began to paint the series of pictures exploiting the theme (Arab Fountain, Moorish Caf?).

Lebourg remained on the margin of true Impressionism and did not draw from these series any of the extreme conclusions reached by Monet at that same time. His Impressionism is never provocative; it is, rather, a discreet harmony of half-tones with the vibration of light-filled atmosphere. In him Paris found one of its most sympathetic interpreters, because he knew exactly how to remain scrupulously exact without being banal.

Lebourg’s canvasses were never impersonal. Subtle harmonies are to be found there; above all, a great freshness through the use of light colors complementing and contrasting each other. Through his work, Lebourg proved the error of academics in refusing the new benefits of Impressionism and demonstrated what a non-revolutionary concept of art rejuvenated by new ideas might become.