Marcel Jefferys

The red shell illustrates why the Neo-Impressionist painter Marcel Jefferys (1872–1924) is known as the ‘painter of transparency’. Through light, delicate brushstrokes, he succeeds in suggesting the reflections of various objects placed on a glass table: a conch shell, small shells and a large bowl half-filled with water. Thanks to the predominant use of white, the pearly tones and coloured reflections of the shells stand out brilliantly, in a style comparable to that of James Ensor. Two small birds, barely sketched, have alighted on the rim of the jar. Have they entered through the opening flanked by curtains leading to the seashore? A turquoise shape stands out against the bottom of the vessel. Could it be a fish that the two little birds are watching intently? Jefferys leaves the mystery hanging and lets us give free rein to our imagination … He seeks above all to convey impressions and sensations through light colours, highlighting the transparency of the light. Another painting, *The Bowl of Poppies*, painted from the same window and in which we see this bowl, this time filled with flowers, allows us to identify the beach in the background. Given that the artist produced these works in 1917, whilst he was based in London due to the First World War, the coastline depicted is likely to be English. This work reflects the two major influences on the travelling artist Jefferys: on the one hand, early in his career, Emile Claus and Luminism, a Belgian artistic movement that placed great importance on sunlight and its shimmer; and on the other hand, James Whistler, the American painter and master of white, whom he discovered during his exile in London. This latter discovery, along with that of William Turner, marked a turning point in his palette, which then shifted towards white and grey tones, less vibrant in nature. He applied the oil paint to the canvas spontaneously in thin layers and brushstrokes, in the manner of watercolour on paper, allowing the support to show through in several places, which enabled him to render the curtains’ distinctive texture with great precision. The artist Paul Colin remarked of him: “No one has taken independent Impressionism further than Jefferys, the kind that utilises the spontaneity of natural means of expression and scorns formulas and theories.”

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