Vladimir Vladyslaw GRANZOW (1872 – 1932) Lot n° 48

Normande with a basket of vegetables Oil on canvas mounted on plywood 98 x 61,5 cm Signed lower right "W GRANZOW "Mr. Vladislav Granzov does not present himself as a reformer of the plastic arts. He has visited the Museums and prides himself on having learned something from them that could save him from paradox. He has no intention of being modern in the narrow sense in which the word is sometimes understood. For several years, he tried to copy, at the Prado in Madrid, the Velasquezes, the Titians, the Rubens, to penetrate some of the secrets of classical painting. He got from this frequentation the taste of the composition which preserved him at least from certain excesses of the realism. Mr. Granzow seems at ease whenever he frees his conception from the realistic aspect of his models. He has the ambition to rise to a style, sparing on details and ennobling the linear structure of his paintings where he animates the landscapes by figures essential to the composition. To fully render what Mr. Granzow wanted, we can add that he directed his efforts towards the balance of contrasts by enveloping the parts of the painting. This search for pictorial harmony obviously tends towards the nobility of expression and cannot fail to give charm to the subject. This is how true painters have expressed themselves. Guillaume Apollinaire, preface to the Vladislav Granzow Exhibition, Monday, October 25 to Saturday, November 6, Galerie Druet, 1909. p. 3-5.