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Néo-Réalisme.
Term used to describe a movement among certain French painters in the 1920s and 1930s, resulting in works of a poetic naturalist style. Among the main exponents were Maurice Asselin, Jean-Louis Boussingault, Maurice Brianchon, Charles Dufresne, André Dunoyer de Segonzac, Raymond-Jean Legueult (b 1898), Robert Lotiron (b 1886) and Luc-Albert Moreau; Dunoyer de Segonzac was the unofficial leader. Though there was no conscious grouping, various of these artists were associated in an informal way. Néo-Réalisme arose in reaction to modern movements such as Cubism and Surrealism, which were seen as breaking with the French tradition. Essentially it was a manifestation of the post-war ‘rappel à l’ordre’, and the artists concerned attempted to steer a path between modernism and academicism. It placed primary emphasis on the study of reality and nature as ordinarily perceived, and its aesthetic was well summed up by Dunoyer de Segonzac’s statement (Jamot, p. 102):The search for originality at any price has led only to a terrible monotony. The world of illegibility, the lecture-picture and the puzzle-picture, which are a result of a decadent symbolism, is going to become dated...In actual fact the French tradition has been carried on quietly by Vuillard, Bonnard, Matisse and many others...There has been no break with the magnificent school which stretches from Jean Fouquet to Cézanne.Typical of the style is Dunoyer de Segonzac’s Church of Chaville (Winter) (1934–7; Paris, Mus. A. Mod. Ville Paris). Néo-Réalisme is not connected with the later movement Nouveau Réalisme.
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