Homme à la barque

Homme à la barque (Man with a Boat), dated around 1883 and held at the Fondation Bemberg in Toulouse, is an early Cross work from before his Divisionist conversion, painted in a naturalist style consistent with his academic training and Impressionist influences. In 1883 Cross — who had adopted the anglicized surname to avoid confusion with Eugène Delacroix — was working toward the Salon and the Salon des Indépendants in a broadly Impressionist register. The subject of a man with a small fishing or rowing boat is characteristic of the coastal subjects he would later develop through a very different technique. The Fondation Bemberg in Toulouse, which holds an important collection of works on panel (this is painted on panel rather than canvas), acquired the work as part of a significant holding of French art. The small-boat fisherman subject, treated with a directness and simplicity appropriate to a pre-Divisionist technique, shows Cross's consistent interest in the human figure engaged with water and the coastal environment.

The panel support and early naturalist technique — fluid brushwork, tonal modeling, Impressionist attention to light — contrasts significantly with Cross's later Divisionist canvas work. The small format and direct handling suggest an outdoor sketch or study.