Jules Cavaillès started as a technical draughtsman during which time he met 'le pere Artigue' who was a friend
of the famous pointillist artist Henri Martin and who encouraged him to go to Paris to study fine art.
In 1925 he enroled at the Academie Julian and he began exhibiting at the various Parisian Salons from 1928
the Societie des Artistes Francais, Artistes Independants and l’Automne.
To fund his studies he opened a small
chemist shop. He was soon invited to participate at the Salon des Tuileries and in 1936 he organised the 14th
exhibition of the Artistes de ce temps in the Petit-Palais. In the same year he received the prestigious
Grant Blumenthal and he was soon awarded the commission to decorate the Pavilion of Languedoc for the Exposition
Universelle. He was part of a group of artists called 'La Realite Poetique'.
His artistic style is characterised by the juxtaposition of pure colour, derived from an interpretation
of fauvist painting which was less interested in the early Fauve artists’ search for intensity and dynamism
than a simple expression of ‘joie de vivre’.
Jean Cassou about Jules Cavaillès
Slowly he garnered his knowledge, studied the charms and secrets of colours, practised his scales and adjusted
his palette, which is certainly in the image of his warm, rich and full heart, a palette made for singing the joys
of life. He is a sober and strict draughtsman with a marvellous conciseness, and it strikes me at this point that
I should long ago have said a few words about the quality of his drawings.
They are among the most excellent of
our French school of drawing, and we see in them the benefit he has derived from a stay in Italy among the sites
which inspired the most illustrious masters of that school, Poussin, Lorrain and Corot. Italy, seen by the French,
sheds its academic garb and becomes sheer light and truth, a precise, clear, pure and immense universe, the most
crystalline of music.
In these paintings perspective space is deliberately converted into musical space, the distances and tempos
between two sounds, the relative position of objects in rhythm.
The objects themselves are stripped of their
conceptual significance. They cease to be a vase, a flower, the creation of man or of nature, roots or pebbles,
to become one of the notes of a bizarre song.
Painting of this kind is absorbed quite differently from painting which is established in the geometric and
perspective theatre of our approaches and which orders objects in accordance with our optical illusions.
The natural destiny of Cavaillès marks him out as starting from the earth and the earthly places where he was
rooted and progressing towards that painting, so temporal, so poetical and so musical.
He is a master of his craft. Moreover, how could such a man, wholly faithful to his personal nature,
in any way fail to merit the fine title of craftsman, which is granted only to the artist devoid of artifice,
who, to the end, obstinately refuses its dignity solely from its tools and its material faithfully used ?
It is when he is solidly grounded in his craft that we can look to a painter for what we expect from every painter
to whose company we commit ourselves, namely renewal. He renews himself and us with him. We share with him the
knowledge of something which is never finished.
Hommage à Cavaillès, published by the Editions Bruker, Paris, 1961.
Jules Cavaillès, biographie (French)
Il est né le 20 juin à Carmaux, dans le Tarn. Après des études au lycée d’Albi, puis à partir de 1915,
au collège de Castres, Jules Cavaillès débute dans les mines de Carmaux en tant que dessinateur en 1919.
Il ne tarde pas à quitter son métier afin de se donner définitivement à la peinture en 1922.
A cette date, il arrive à Paris, et entre à l’académie Jullian. A son arrivée dans la capitale,
il habite avec sa femme à 'La Ruche', fameux phalanstère du passage Dantzig, qui avait abrité deux
ans auparavant Soutine, Modigliani, Chagall et Zadkine. C’est à cette époque que Cavaillès se lie
d’amitié avec Limouse. Pendant plusieurs années, les deux artistes partagent le même atelier et se rendent
ensemble régulièrement au Musée du Louvre afin d’admirer et étudier les tableaux restés encore à l’état d’esquisses.
C’est en 1923 qu’il expose et vend pour la première fois. En 1925, il commence à se détacher des normes
académiques pour embrasser les formes contemporaines de l’art. En 1936, Cavaillès obtient la première bourse
de la Fondation Blumenthal pour la pensée et l’art français, événement qui le rend de plus en plus connu auprès
du grand public. C’est ainsi qu’en 1937, il est appelé à exécuter une décoration pour le Pavillon du Languedoc
à l’Exposition Internationale. Lors de la seconde guerre mondiale, il est mobilisé, puis prend part à la résistance,
dans laquelle il devient, avec son ami Jean Cassou, un des chefs du maquis languedocien. A la libération,
il est nommé conservateur du Musée de Toulouse pour lequel il rassemble une collection d’œuvres de ses contemporains,
jusqu’au moment où il réintègre son poste de professeur à l’Ecole des Arts Décoratifs de Paris. Depuis 1946,
Cavaillès joue du pinceau sans arrêt. A Paris, dans son atelier de la rue Poissy, comme dans sa propriété
d'Epineuil ou dans son appartement de Cannes, il peint des paysages, des vues de ports et des natures mortes qui sont,
suivant le vœu de Delacroix, 'une fête pour l’œil'.
Il peint avec prédilection des intérieurs avec une
fenêtre ouverte sur de vibrants paysages marins. Il s’éteint à Epineuil le 29 janvier 1977, en laissant derrière
lui, non seulement le souvenir d’un peintre chaleureux, mais aussi celui d’un épicurien qui savait recevoir et
donner vie à de grandes fêtes en compagnie de ses amis.