A couple of days ago I went to the Moulin de Larroque, where the new owners, Duncan and Prudence had invited me to attend the vernissage of one of the foremost aquarelle painters of France -- an artist who only uses the exquisite hand made paper of the Larroque paper mill in Couze.
Bellou Jaillet immediately struck me as someone from an era gone past -- someone who has stepped right out of the Romantic Period. Immaculately dressed, with a charm that one rarely comes across, eyes that dance when he speaks about his work, elegant white hands emphasising the points he wishes to put across -- and paintings that strongly evoke an era in the past as well. He talks about the difficulty he had at first of painting on the hand made paper - much more textured than usual water colour card -- but how, once he had mastered the technique, he never used anything else.
Interesting then to see how their is a synergy between the artist and his medium. The paper compliments his delicate painting, his painting brings the character of the paper to life. One painting in particular seemed to be so realistic -- the reflection in the rippled water almost made you think you were looking at the real thing -- when you realise that it is the water colours on the textured paper causing the effect.
To add to the Romantic Period feeling, most of his paintings are done "entre chien et loup" -- at dusk -- the colours soft and dreamy and muted, the skies fading into soft pinks and blues and greens -- adding to the feeling that it is romanticism and poetry which guide his brush.
"I always paint the sky first and if that is right, I continue with the rest of the painting. But if the sky does not look right, I abandon the painting and start again", he says.
"Extremely nuanced and refined colours.." writes one critic.
"His vocation is to translate the beauty of the world, with the help of the water colours and gouaches, into a hommage to nature in the style of Turner and Constable and Corot", says another.
The president of the French National Society for Fine Arts, the Admiral Francois Bellec, calls him "the painter of our sweet France"...
Considered to be one of the great contemporary water colour artists of France, he has won innumerable gold medals and accolades for his work -- too many to mention, and in November 2009 he was invited to exhibit in the Grand Palais in Paris - truly an amazing accomplishment!(so well done to Duncan - what a feather in the cap of Couze to have this great man exhibit his work here in our midst!)
And then, as if by magic, when I left the exhibition and looked up at the sky -- there was Bellou's painting! I simply had to go fetch him away from all his admirers for one moment to come outside to look:
there, in his honour, surely, the sky over the Dordogne was a perfect copy of one of his paintings! We do, here in the Dordogne, make our visitors feel very special!...
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