Brought up in a poor country family, he trained as a sculptor first, then switched to painting. A selection of his early social realist works, comparable with those of Jules Bastien-Lepage.
Breton
Borrowed from the Church, parasols became an accessory of the aristocracy, then for all who were fashionable. They went from black to white, then Japanese.
From Constable and Turner’s views of London’s parliament ablaze, to Edvard Munch’s painting of a local manor house in flames.
A detailed look at his paintings of the rural poor which led up to Naturalism, and how he used a compositional formula so successfully.
Little-known now, and only for his paintings of harvesters and gleaners, in his day he was at the leading edge of the Naturalist revolution, painting scientists.
After the early death of Bastien-Lepage, he led the Naturalist movement in France. After 1892, though, he concentrated on religious themes seen in a new light.
An illustrated timeline and overview of how the human visual environment, and perception of it, has changed from ancient times to virtual reality.
A look back at some of my favourite articles on painters and painting, from Moreau and Salome, to Merson’s tame wolf.
Exposure to colour was, for centuries, determined by class. The poor lived in largely drab worlds, but the rich surrounded themselves with vivid hues. This all changed in the late 19th century and the 20th.
The majority of portraits and genre paintings of women washing clothes are thoroughly demur, without the slightest innuendo.
