Henri le Sidaner – Soir de Printemps

“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”

(Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast)

Henri le Sidaner, Soir de Printemps, c. 1920

Henri le Sidaner is amongst my new favourite artists because his paintings are just so damn dreamy and this painting, “Soir de Printemps” is no exception. The painting shows a view of the houses and blooming trees one evening in spring. Henri le Sidaner loved painting landscapes and gardens, overall he had a penchant for portraying places uninhabited by people or even animals, places which he could then, using the colours of his emotions, transform into landscapes and gardens of his dreams. The mood of his paintings is often dreamy, tinged with an inexplicable melancholy and a sense of beauty inevitably passing away, just like the warmth of summer does. In “Soir de Printemps” there is dreaminess, but no sadness. I dare say there is even a sense of excitement, and surely the painter must have felt excited as he gazed at this scene himself. An evening in spring is made for daydreams and the heart is filled to the brim with the beauty and fragrance of the blooming trees, and we are eager to take in all this transient beauty before the petals fall off, or are carried away by the wind. The houses with windows here and there from which a warm yellow lighth can be seen, and the trees in bloom create a lovely pattern and almost nothing else apart from these two motifs can be scene. The colour palette of lilac, grey, and blue perfectly encapsulated that hazy moment when the evening is falling in spring, as if the fairies themselves have woven a magical cloak and are covering the entire nature with it. I love the softness and vagueness of the scene, it is painted as if the painter was seeing the world through a gauze curtain. The tender, transient beauty of the blooming trees of early spring is truly unparalleled, especially after long, dreary months of winter.