The Bouchardon Mill

Guillaumin returned to the Bouchardon mill at Crozant in 1905 to paint another version of the subject, and this canvas at the Musée d'Orsay represents his latest extended engagement with the motif. By 1905 his style had evolved considerably even from the 1898 version: the strokes are broader, the colour has pushed further from naturalism, and the overall handling has the quality of an artist working from such deep familiarity with a subject that he can simplify without losing truthfulness. The Orsay's acquisition of this late Crozant work places it in the institution that holds the greatest concentration of Guillaumin's work in any single collection, including the 'Sunset at Ivry' and early Seine paintings, allowing visitors to trace his development from the 1870s through the first decade of the twentieth century. The 1905 date also puts this canvas in the same moment as the first Fauve exhibition at the Salon d'Automne, and Guillaumin's bold colour choices here show how his own long development had arrived at similar conclusions from a different direction.

Oil on canvas with the most assured handling of all the Bouchardon mill versions. The paint is applied in large, decisive strokes with minimal revision, the colour pushed toward intensity that the earlier versions approached more cautiously. The water surface is particularly freely handled, its reflections barely differentiated from the paint marks themselves, creating a surface that is simultaneously optical and material.