The valley of the dunes (La vallée des dunes)

Alphonse Legros (1837–1911) was an Anglo-French etcher, lithographer, painter and medallist. An accomplished creator of macabre allegories and realist scenes of the French countryside, he made a massive impact on the British Etching Revival.

Born in Dijon, a move to Paris by his family in 1851 saw the fourteen-year-old Legros working as a scene-painter of opera sets. During this time Legros also received further training at the École Impériale de Dessin, Paris, under Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran (1802–1897), whose method of teaching required students to copy Louvre works through mental recollection alone – emphasising the importance of a strong visual memory. Although Legros would spend much of his life living in Britain, his subject matter stayed distinctly French. His landscapes were enriched by memories of time spent during his childhood.

Legros moved to London in 1863, taught as Master of etching at the South Kensington School of Art in 1875 and was made Slade Professor at University College London in 1876. Upon his retirement in 1893, Legros appeared jaded about his time spent teaching, allegedly saying ‘vingt ans perdus’ – ‘twenty years lost’. Despite this disillusionment, during this time Legros shaped the future of the British Etching Revival through his notable students, such as William Strang and Charles Holroyd. Students and critics both noted his insistence on the quality of line which laid the foundation for the ‘Slade tradition’ of fine draughtsmanship.

Legros’ works exhibit less economy of line than the younger generation of etching revivalists; as a result, his scenes of allegory and peasant life in the French landscape are characterised by bold outlines and heavy crosshatching. He was a terrific technician, evident in his use of etching and drypoint alike.

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The valley of the dunes (La vallée des dunes) is a drypoint and etching which depicts a vast expanse of French countryside, through which a river runs and the steeple of a small church can be seen in the distance. In the foreground, two straw-hatted labourers carry heavy-looking bundles of wood. The bushes through which they walk are etched with a dark black line, creating a pool of shadow that sets them apart from the rest of the idyllic scene. The labourers are the only active figures that punctuate the mood of stillness.

According to Timothy Wilcox in his entry on Legros in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, "[t]he roots of Legros's profound attachment to rural life are to be traced among the variegated landscape of low hills, enlivened by little rivers and patches of woodland, which proved an especially fertile source of imagery during the second half of his career." The early influence of the countryside as a place of beauty of can definitely be seen in this print, but the presence of the labourers suggests another dimension of the countryside, as a place of work.

Legros was deeply familiar with this aspect. He had been born into a poor family and worked from the age of eleven as a house painter, during which time "he suffered both hunger and cold".(Salaman, p. 3). Legros knew then both the beauty and harsh reality of country life and in The valley of the dunes he certainly conveys them.

Sources:

Maurice Harold Grant, ‘A Dictionary of British Etchers’, (London: Rockliff, 1953), pp. 127–128

Timothy Wilcox, ‘Legros, Alphonse (1837–1911)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004): https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/34480

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_Legros

Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art   July 2018