Lucien Levy-Dhurmer

	Lucien Levy-Dhurmer was a French Symbolist and Art Nouveau painter and potter. He was a master of pastels, painter of fantastical scenes, portraits and beautiful Mediterranean landscapes. He was born Lucien Lévy to a Jewish family in Algiers. From 1879 Lucien Levy attended drawing and sculpture classes at his local school in Paris. In 1886, he met Raphael Collin, who advised him. From 1887-1895 he lived at Golfe Juan, working as a decorator of porcelain figurines and objets d'art. Lucien Levy- Dhurmer first discovered classical art on a trip to Italy. Returning to Paris in 1869, he exhibited under a pseudonym, adding the last two syllables of his mother's maiden name (Goldhurmer) to his own, probably to avoid confusion with another artist called Lévy. In 1879 Levy began studying drawing and sculpture in Paris. In 1887  Lucien Lévy began making his living in southern France, overseeing the decoration of ceramics. His own tastes in pottery decoration were influenced by Islamic Art. In 1895 he left for Paris to begin a career in painting. Around this time Lucien Levy Dhurmer visited Italy and was further influenced by art of the Renaissance. His characteristic style, a hazy academicism, was appreciated in equal measure by the public and by other artists. While maintaining an academic approach to detail, he assimilated the lessons of Impressionism, creating works whose astonishingly successful coloristic harmony invariably relates to the idea or vision he sought to invoke.
	Lucien Levy-Dhurmer's pastel and charcoal picture "Medusa" or "Waging Wave" (shown here) was completed in 1897. The artwork is an excellent example of the symbolist style. They prefer vision to sight. The art is tinged with spirituality and plunges into beliefs, myths and legends. For them woman is often a deadly creature, a poisonous, raging being, a monster of accursed beauty. The world of appearances fades away before the dream like universe; the elements come to life, take human form and become nightmarish figures. They call themselves Symbolists, these painters, draughtsman and artists who share the same goal: to make the invisible visible, to cling to fate, dreams from the subconscious and other places. Lucien Levy-Dhurmer earned high praise for the academic attention to detail with which he captured figures lost in a Pre-Raphaelike haze of melancholy, contrasted with bright Impressionist coloration. His portrait of writer Georges Rodenbach is perhaps the most striking example of this strange and extraordinary synergy. After 1901 Lévy-Dhurmer moved away from expressly Symbolist content, incorporating more landscapes into his work. Lucien Levy-Dhurmer continued to draw inspiration from music and attempted to capture works of great composers such as Beethoven in painted form. He died in Le Vésinet in 1953.
	Lucien Levy Dhurmer used pastels a great deal, this medium with its suggestive blurred effects, lending itself to the magic of symbolism; several of his contemporaries, particularly Fantin-Latour and Khnopff, were equally attracted by his pastel technique. He was influenced by the ideas both of Khnopff and the Pre-Raphaelites (this latter influence can be seen particularly in his rather languid women and his idealized figures). Levy-Dhurmer exhibited frequently at the Salon d'Automne. By the end of the century both critics and literary men began to admire his work: Mauclair, Soulier, De Miomandre praised him at great length and Leon Thevenin devoted his book La Renaissance paienne (1898) to him. His style, which played skillfully on the academic treatment of visionary subjects, delighted a society which flattered him, encouraged in this by the admiration which the well-known Belgian poet Goerges Rodenbach had for him. The painter did a famous portrait of Rodenbach set against the background of the city of Bruges. Although very limited information is available about Lucien Levy-Dhurmer, his artwork is a favorite for many and his "Medusa" is displayed at the Orsay Musuem in Paris. Since his artwork speaks volumes, we have added this wonderful YouTube video of his work.

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