"Georget Charles Painting XIXth Century Landscape Around Melun Oil On Canvas Signed"
GEORGET Jean-Charles ( 1833 / 1895 )
The surroundings of Melun.
Oil on canvas signed at the bottom right.
46 x 33 cm
Painting exhibited at the Salon of 1881 under the number 977.
Jean-Charles Georget was born in Paris on March 27, 1833.
Orphaned very early, he was entrusted to a tutor, M. Martial, an honest, indifferent and cold man, who scrupulously administered his assets, but gave him no affection. The childhood of Ch. Georget was aimless and joyless, like that of most people without a family, who are interned in a college. No one worried about him, about his health, about his progress. He himself took a mediocre interest in studying, he felt isolated, and in this Gillon boarding house, in Belleville, he only liked drawing. During the recess he painted the portrait of his masters, who, in return, lifted the punishments. 
To this early taste for the pencil he joined that of independence. All his life he loved the countryside, the open air, nature. His escapades consisted of elopements, walks: he loved outdoor school. Once, he escaped with a friend, no one took notice of their absence. 
During the holidays, his happiness was to run to his father's country of origin, in Chavanges, a big town of Champagne, neighbor of Brienne, of which he loved since childhood the pleasant horizon, the squat bell tower, and the hollow paths, mired in gray marl. Ch. Georget will never stop in front of the only pretty landscape, in front of the cute, anecdotal, licked site. He will have high and severe tastes, and the ungrateful and robust land of Champagne will not have mediocre fortified in adolescence the love of great paintings, imbued with beauty and character. 
He graduated from college around the age of 18. His tutor then inquired about his tastes and asked him what he planned to do.  Draw, he replied. Basically, he had only a clear and definite desire to become a painter, but out of shyness he dared not express it and let himself be placed, rue de Fleurus, with a renowned engraver, Mr. Caron, who kept him for seven years, for a salary of 25 francs per month. Caron's lessons were from an artist and a master, the student followed them with ardor. Quickly, he became aware of his strengths and affirmed his vocation. Several of his essay compositions, which he presented to image publishers on the left bank, having been received in time, the young engraver, sure of himself, liked better to give up the benefit of his work, than to consent to alterations that shocked his taste. From his work as an engraver there remains, among other things, a Marriage of the Virgin, a Louis XIII child and the portrait of Sauvageot, the great collector. These were solid beginnings in art, which were appreciated and encouraged not only by the master engraver Caron, but also by Henriquel Dupont, a member of the Institute. 
Around the time of his majority, at the age of 21, he had, with the consent of his guardian, settled in a modest apartment, but decorated according to his means and his tastes, where he felt at home, freed from any subjection and any constraint. It was her first day of emancipation and happiness. Later, many years later, he still spoke about it with an overflowing and ingenuous satisfaction. 
However, it was not long before he took drawing classes at the School of Fine Arts. Not daring, whatever secret desire he had, to approach painting, he learned for his pleasure and his benefit, the science of drawing, and never afterwards did he paint a painting without having first built it with charcoal, without having scrupulously established the lineaments and the framework. The drawing is the probity of the artist. At the same time, during his leisure hours, he was introduced to the first notions of painting, to the secrets of color. We can imagine what he must have brought to these studies of persevering joy and ardor. He observed everything around him, he listened and learned every day a little about this profession, which no one possesses by intuition or instinct.  Painting cannot be taught, Albert Wolf, the critic of Le Figaro, once wrote. However, it is learned. There is a grammar of the Fine Arts, as there is an orthography, rules of metric, laws of perspective, the genius himself does not ignore them, nor ignores them, but while respecting the principles and rules of the human mind, he makes an original application of them, while the talent cautiously relies on them as on a stair railing. The wrong of schools is to accredit formulas, headings and to live on them. Ch. Geonget freed himself from workshop oracles and preferred to train by direct observation and personal study in the fresh air, in the middle of nature. He quickly assimilated the essential rudiments of painting, and without losing himself for this in the naivetés and the lefties of the primitives, he wanted to be himself.
Barbizon then enjoyed a universal and deserved prestige. The great painters Diaz, Rousseau, Millet, Ch. Jacque, and the writers A. de Musset, Gustave Flaubert, the Goncourt, H. Murger had revealed to the four corners of the world the obscure hamlet, from which so many masterpieces came out. Ch. Georget, after thinking about Algeria, which seduced him from afar, preferred to settle in Farcy-lès-Lys, which was neither famous nor invaded. It was there that, after several years, he married in 1863*1, with the one who was the good companion of his life, the guardian of his memory and the continuer of his talent. It is from 1863 that his life as an artist really dates. She was industrious and fruitful, devoted exclusively to the simple life, to the joys of the workshop and the home. No distractions, no worldly relationships, but a withdrawn existence, the contemplation of nature and the silent work. The effort of these years can still be appreciated today by the watercolors, charcoal and studies accumulated and kept in the boxes where we follow the steps of the painter towards self-control and the full development of talent. More than one still remembers the silhouette of the artist, sitting by his easel, in all seasons, from the dawn until dusk, in front of a beautiful landscape. But more than anything, the forest of Fontainebleau captivated him then.
It is from her that he is inspired and especially from Bas-Bréau at that time desert and wild. It is there that he seeks his subject and his inspiration, because nature is his Louvre, his Montmartre and his Café de Fleurus. He likes it among the rocks and the heathers, in the Apremont gorges or on the edge of a Lilliputian pond where the white and thin stems of the birches, the moire and hairy trunks of the beeches, the rough barrels of the oaks are reflected with the blue sky. Early in the morning, with the beret over his ear and the gaunt calves, he leaves in the middle of the rumors of the feuillée, then the little white earth pipe in his mouth, the pipe that, he said, gave him such good ideas, he settles down, admires, draws and paints, in the company of a squirrel that jumps or a rabbit that nibbles. Fruitful hours of meditation and work, of dreams and efforts, of discouragement and enthusiasm where the artist struggles with the elusive and mobile nature, in order to reproduce, for the enchantment of our eyes, the power of life and beauty. At nightfall, Ch. Georget returned to his workshop in Farcy, his body harassed, but his spirit light, because he had a loving and clear look reproduced with a little color and on a little canvas, the very soul of a landscape, that is to say at the same time as its lines and its color which makes it the proper character and the ideal truth. 
He died on December 22, 1895, and fell asleep, faithful to his belief in the afterlife. His body rests in the cemetery of Dammarie-lès-Lys, under the flowers of remembrance, in the shade of the great forest and near the banks of the Seine, which had charmed his life and inspired his talent.
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