Jean-Charles Cazin

Who he was

Jean-Charles Cazin (25 May 1841, Samer, Pas-de-Calais -- 26 March 1901, Le Lavandou) was a painter, engraver and ceramicist, a pupil of Lecoq de Boisbaudran, who spent some time in England in 1872--1874 and settled at Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1876. He was a friend of Puvis de Chavannes. His Salon works include Le Chantier (1876), Agar et Ismaël (1880, first-class medal; now Musée des beaux-arts, Tours), Souvenir de fête (1881) and Judith sortant des murs de Béthulie (1883), which was criticised for its modern costumes. He was made chevalier of the Légion d'honneur on 13 July 1882 (Wikipedia fr, "Jean-Charles Cazin").

Marie and Cazin

Cazin enters the diary on the last day of 1882 and stays until April 1884 as the painter of "sentiment" she sets beside, and sometimes against, Jules Bastien-Lepage. They do not appear to have met; on 17 May 1883 she says Bastien's friendship would have been as agreeable "comme celle d'un Cazin, d'un Saint Marceaux" (099.0473).

On 31 December 1882 she revisits the exhibition in the rue de Sèze, which showed Bastien-Lepage, Saint-Marceaux and Cazin: "C'est pour la première fois que je vois de la peinture de Cazin et je suis conquise, c'est de la poésie" (097.0322). On 27 January 1883 she writes that "dans aucun musée je n'ai vu de paysagiste comparable à lui": a small night picture with a black boat against a blue sky makes her breathe the sea air; he is "un magicien, un créateur"; Bastien-Lepage is for living figures what Cazin is for sky, rain and wind (098.0189--0190). On 1 May 1883 she finds his Salon Judith a disappointment compared with his landscapes: Judith's appearance "n'excuse pas l'enchaînement de Holopherne" (099.0308). In June 1883, comparing the paintings in a Millet exhibition, she writes that Cazin's landscapes are closer to Millet than Bastien's and that "Bastien est moins le fils de Millet que Cazin qui lui ressemble beaucoup ou plus... jeune" (100.0165, 100.0167). On 1 July 1883 the Luxembourg yields two memories, "l'Agar et l'Esmal de Cazin" and Saint-Marceaux's Génie gardant le secret de la tombe (100.0270).

In August 1883 he becomes the model of what she wants to paint: "quelque chose qui accroche le coeur comme les simples petites toiles de Cazin ... combien y-a-t-il qui comprenne Cazin?" (100.0551); on 18 August she praises him to Mme Cartwright and teases the Russian painter Tchernitsky (101.0171). On 2 February 1884 she writes that she prefers "une petite toile de Cazin avec une barque noire sur un ciel bleu rempli d'étoiles" to all the celebrated dark landscapes of the museums, because it evokes a real night at Nice, with the moon about to be reflected in a calm sea (103.0240). On 2 April 1884, spending an hour at Petit's gallery before Bastien-Lepage's pictures, she writes only: "Cazin est bien aussi mais!" (103.0675).

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