Le Repos des Gens du Cirque 1930

Camille Bombois's "Le Repos des Gens du Cirque" is an image built up with many layers of opaque paint, each figure carefully delineated and placed in a scene as if on a stage. I wonder what it was like for Bombois, an outsider, to paint this scene of leisure, creating such a vivid world from his imagination, each detail meticulously rendered. Look at the flatness of the figures, the way they are arranged in the pictorial space. The thick paint gives a tactile quality to everything, from the lush green grass to the figures themselves, each existing as a solid, defined object. The circus performers and their dogs lounge in the sun, taking time out of the limelight. Is this his take on a classical pastoral scene? Or perhaps this is Bombois imagining his fellow performers, understanding, but at a remove. Painting is often like that, isn't it? An attempt to grasp something just out of reach, each brushstroke a step further into the unknown. He is in conversation with so many other painters, it’s like a call and response across time and space.