MORET, Henry
French marine and landscape painter who spent most of his life in Brittany. He preferred to paint coastal scenes capturing the power and violence of the sea against the granite outcrops of the Brittany coast, but also painted rural scenes of landscapes and working people.
He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts with Laurens and Gérôme. He exhibited for the first time in 1880. He soon turned away from the academic style of his teachers, influenced by Monet.
Moret favoured the painting techniques of the Impressionists and was friends with Paul Gauguin and Émile Bernard. In 1889 he worked at Le Pouldu with Gauguin’s adherents. In 1888-1892 he turned to Synthetism and established his own stylistic blend of Impressionism in the manner of Guillaumin and the style of the Pont-Aven school.
He used deep colours and vigorous brushstrokes within simple compositions and masterfully blended Synthetism and Impressionist techniques such that his work is considered a unique bridge uniting these two trends of the Pont Aven movement.
