
The history of gouache
Gouache as a witness to history
Water-based painting first appeared when humans began to paint on cave walls. These first paints were made from a mixture of water and coloured earth. The Egyptians added gum arabic, derived from the acacia tree, to this recipe to paint papyrus, tomb walls and temples. Their frescoes, still visible today, bear witness to the durability of this mixture.

Developed around the 15th century following on from Tempera, a water-based technique used in Antiquity, gouache was first used in drawing to highlight volumes and perspectives. For a long time confined to the minor role of sketch painting, it has gradually established itself as an art form in its own right, and is now favoured by creators, designers and illustrators the world over.

This know-how did not escape the notice of eminent twentieth-century artists, including the famous painter Henri Matisse. The Lefranc Bourgeois archives include one of his letters in which he thanks Monsieur Lefranc for the creation of his violet fixe, a Linel tint that was essential to the creation of Henri Matisse's blues and reds. From the 1940s onwards, Henri Matisse developed a new technique: cut-out gouaches. Using coloured sheets painted with gouache, Matisse cut out shapes so that he could modulate his works until he found the ideal place for each element. A study was carried out by the Conservation Department of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, based on 79 samples of gouache paper and 6 tubes of Lefranc Bourgeois paint donated by Matisse's successors. This study showed the use of Linel gouache, sometimes pure without being mixed, by the famous painter.

Illustration and decoration have always been closely linked, as demonstrated by the use of Mathurin Méheut's designs by the Manufacture de Sèvres and the Manufacture Henriot in Quimper. Born in 1882, this nature-loving painter developed an early interest in flora and fauna. His travels around the world, from his native Brittany to Monaco, via Hawaii and Japan, led him to observe, draw and paint landscapes, animals, plants and the ocean world. He became an Official Painter of the Navy (POM) in 1921. His scientific approach and his ethnographer's eye led him to immortalise on plates the evidence of the biodiversity of his time. His works are produced with botanical precision, imbued with a remarkable sensitivity that is enhanced by the use of gouache. Since then, other designers and explorers have turned to the iconic Linel gouache.