Mauclair, Camille

Mauclair, Camille (pseudonym of Séverin Faust) (1872–1945). French writer. His large and varied output included fiction, poetry, and literary and musical criticism, but he is best known for his writings on art, in which he supported Symbolism but was a fervent opponent of various forms of avant-garde art, seeing himself as an upholder of French tradition. John Rewald (The History of Impressionism, 1946, 4th edn., 1973) writes of him: ‘As art critic of the Mercure de France [from 1892] he had published many articles of a pretentious character, launching insolent attacks on all the great contemporary painters. He saw in neo-impressionism a trifling technique, referred to Gauguin's art as colonial, spoke of the gangsterism of Lautrec, poured out his scorn for Cézanne, and treated Pissarro with contempt … But when the painters were finally rewarded with recognition, and when most of those he slandered had died, Mauclair did not scruple to add his voice to the general expressions of admiration. It must be admitted, however, that he remained at least faithful to his opinions concerning Cézanne and never ceased to consider him a poor provincial artist stricken with incompetence and ambition … Under the Vichy government, Mauclair, once more a turncoat, wrote a book on the Jews in art, denouncing Pissarro among others. After the liberation of France, he was condemned to “national unworthiness.”’

Mauclair's The French Impressionists (1903) was the first book on the movement to appear in English (this translation preceded the French edition—L'Impressionnisme, son histoire, son esthétique, ses maîtres, 1904). In spite of its shortcomings, Bernard Denvir comments that it ‘contributed much to the appreciation of the movement, especially in England and the USA’ (The Thames and Hudson Encyclopaedia of Impressionism, 1990). Mauclair's other books include La Farce de l'art vivant (2 vols., 1929–30) and monographs on Besnard (1914), Monet (1924, English translation 1925), and Rodin (1918, preceded by an English translation in 1905). See also FAUVISM.