PROVENANCE:
Ader-Picard-Tajan, Paris, March 6, 1991
Dimensions Art Center, Taipei
Private collection, Asia

In L’église Saint Césaere”, the air is cool in the early morning mist and the bell for the morning prayer has yet to be rung. Jansem used fine lines to sketch the contours of the barely discernible bell tower of the church in the distance. The light gray with watery blue gives a sense of transparency, while the many varied layers of texture imbue the scene with a lightness and delicacy associated with watercolor. When compared to the haziness of the distant background, the use of color for the small trees in the foreground is quite conspicuous. The black-brown branches are twisted; the greenery shown in the scene becomes a forest. The landscape works of Jansem are always imbued with a sense of calm tranquility. The artist used both his mind and eyes to express the poetry that exists within realism, and to make his intuitions manifest. These soothe and alleviate the anxious minds of modern viewers.