In various publications, art critics applauded the way in which Colin depicted his female models on canvas. A few quotes: ‘What Jean Colin deals with most in his paintings, is the female figure, nude or dressed. (…) The nude is depicted on canvas in a delicate manner.’ (Gand Artistique, Maurice HALOCHE, Novem- ber 1923) ‘The works by Colin undress the young women. (…) Even when nude, they never fully part with the clothes they have taken off and when they are covered with nothing more than the strip of silk at Aphrodite’s feet, they try to wrap themselves in an embrace of cushions. Colin knows the power of the skin and of the sensual lines of a beautiful back, but he almost treats them like a naïve artist and one will find in his work no voluptuousness or an incentive to sin. In her casual naked- ness, the woman wears her beautiful flesh like a beam of light. In her mirror, one also sees her quiet face, seemingly denying the feast of her body.’ (Savoir et Beauté, Gaston HEUX, March 1924) ‘Colin also depicts women on canvas. These portraits display a great sensitivity and tender- ness: in the elegance of a gesture or in the tranquillity of an expression, in everything that expresses the grace of the female temperament the artist has managed to put the gentleness which lends such great tenderness to his work. It is even suspected that he is in permanent unity with his models.’ (Le Soir illustré, author unknown, January 1931) It is correct to say that each canvas on which Colin depicted a woman was an ode to grace, were it not for the fact that it was always the same woman. During the first years of his career, Colin’s model was a certain Louise – who figures as Eve in the canvas Idyll [Idylle] (#108) and in other works –, but around 1909 he met Hortensia. She was to become his muse for life (#097). Hortensia was orphaned while she was still in her teens. Her mother (Virginia Steylaerts) had died when she was five and her father (Jacques Martens) died in 1906. In 1907, Hortensia moved from Ghent to Brussels, where at the age of nineteen she became a dancer at the Folies Bergère vaudeville theatre, named after the eponymous Parisian cabaret. Whether Colin met her there or elsewhere we do not know, but the first portrait he painted of her that we recovered, dates from 1909, and in 1910 she gave him an engraved pocket watch to congratulate him on his Prix de Rome. Soon, Colin’s charming favourite model became his exclusive model, except for the portraits he made to order and those depicting other family members and southern women. For about three decades, Hortensia was to be his mistress. Such a relationship was not opportune in those days, but an artist could always take liberties that were not accepted in the ‘ordinary world’. They eventually got married in 1937; Jean was fifty-six at the time. Hortensia and Jean had an exceptionally loving relationship; they were in seventh heaven. They made an amiable couple, mild-mannered and generous and were doing well; he had made his pas- sion into his profession and they could manage easily on it. ‘A blissful artist,’ he was often called in the literature of the times. According to several testimonies from family members, he literally whistled his way through life and was always humming while he was painting. Each of the canvases on which Jean immortalised his Hortensia are poetic outpourings. Colin revealed himself as a minstrel painter, and the sparks were flying. He often literally expressed his boundless amorousness in thick layers of paint. Whenever Hortensia sat as a nude model (#011, #013, #015, etc.), he dressed her in a dignified way, with a skin of perceptive brushstrokes and when she was dressed he presented her in all her nakedness. Thus, he dressed her again as a dancer in – among other works – the painting Danseuse au repos [Dancer at rest], #029 and in #026. He had Hortensia play the role of a costume designer and a dresser, corresponding with his sister Colette’s occupation. In different versions of La Dame en noir [The lady in black] (#035 and #036) and other stately portraits (#033 and #034), he shows her unsurpassed elegance. Hortensia also figures in true-to-life family scenes, knitting on the beach on a fine autumn day (#074, #078, #081, etc.) and as the loveable hostess to local children (#103). Or Colin just shows Hortensia as Hortensia, an exceptionally charming lady, reading on a garden bench (#039). Ulti- mately, she served as a model for all the charms of a woman. Because Colin’s technique was such a fluent one, he could effortlessly portray everything that touched his heart. He made such dynamic paintings for himself in the first place, purely for pleasure, as if they were the diary entries of a minstrel painter. He put his heart and soul into these, even more so than in his other paintings. He could put adoration, desire and tenderness into a subtle balance with the ferocity of his brush. As a result, these works come across as sober, although they are often colourful and luxuriant. Such passionate paintings make a Colin into a genuine, unmistakable Colin and rank among his absolute masterpieces. Indeed, passion and the joy of living are characteristic of this oeuvre. He never painted sorrowful images and would never focus on pain or ugliness. Colin only opted for the picturesque and any other form of beauty life had to offer. Jean Colin died on 24 November 1961. The symbiosis with his favourite model had been severed. A short time later, on 8 June 1962, Hortensia died of heart failure. Copyright © Marc Pairon: Impressionism :Hidden Masterpieces of Jean Colin