Albert Maignan, a virtuoso in the Belle Époque

What is the most enviable fate for an artist? To have enjoyed fame during their lifetime, only to sink into oblivion afterwards, or to have remained unknown all their life, yet achieve posterity after death? Albert Maignan had the satisfaction of being sought after, admired and decorated, considered one of the most brilliant creators of the Belle Époque. Then came oblivion. Who today can name one of his works? Parisians have them in plain sight, or rather above their heads; they only need to look at the ceiling of the Train Bleu at the Gare de Lyon, or the foyer of the Opéra-Comique, and also step inside churches, Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs, Notre-Dame-de-Consolation...

Maignan worked across all scales and all media, illustrating books as well as designing large decorative schemes, both secular and religious. He produced easel paintings, stained glass and tapestries for prestigious public and private patrons. Certain aspects of his output have been shown in recent years: the Fondation Taylor highlighted his work as a decorator in 2016 (see the article), and the Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans studied in 2017 his proposal — not selected — for the cathedral’s stained glass windows (see the article).
The Musée de Picardie is now undertaking to showcase the full richness of his art, the entire range of his talents, and to restore the artist’s former lustre through an exhibition full of surprises that contradicts the label of "pompier painter" sometimes attached to him. Albert Maignan’s work is remarkably diverse: he explored every genre, from still life to history painting; he explored every style, from naturalism to elegiac painting with symbolist overtones, sometimes tempted by Impressionism, sometimes drawn to social realism, often fond of graceful flights of fancy reminiscent of Tiepolo... The exhibition takes us from the little king Clovis II, looking rather lost on his imposing throne among fawning courtiers, to exhausted, grimy miners emerging from the pit in a luminous mist (ill. 1 and 2). It reveals to us the power of flowers and the grip of alcohol, the poisonous beauty of a filmy Medusa, and the talent of Arachne the weaver transformed into a spider. We also move from Lake Brenner buried under snow to medieval objects unearthed from the ground. Maignan took part in archaeological excavations around Saint-Prix, where he had a villa. Throughout his life, he studied and accumulated medieval objects, which he re-used in his history paintings to make them more convincing. He donated his archaeological collection as well as his studio holdings to the museum in Amiens. Why not to Le Mans, his birthplace? No doubt because he was moved to see his monumental canvas Les Voix du Tocsin acquired by the Musée de Picardie. Restored in 2017, it…