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    Puvis de Chavannes
    Puvis de Chavannes
    Puvis de Chavannes
    Ebook167 pages35 minutes

    Puvis de Chavannes

    By Arsène Alexandre and John La Farge

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    About this ebook

    Pierre Puvis de Chavannes is not a very well-known artist. Famous throughout his life yetquickly forgotten by the history of art, his work remains little-studied in comparison to the Impressionist masterpieces of the same period. His oeuvre, however, was crucialin France at the end of the 19th century, in particular his mural paintings which are stillvisible today in numerous important public buildings, such as the Hotel de Ville and the Pantheon in Paris, or the Palais des Beaux-arts in Lyon. Puvis’ specialty was monumental decorative works. He tackled traditionalsubjects from a more general angle and his works were accepted by all the artistic principlesof the time. Far from being a cold and academic painter, he supported artists includingCourbet, Bazile, and Degas when they were attacked by the critics. His oeuvreplayed an essential role in the construction of a national French identity in the 19thcentury.Today the glory of Puvis de Chavannes shines forth in uncontested splendour. No one dreams of comparing him with any of his contemporaries, because his art reveals no kinship with that of any one of them. He is recognized as the successor and the equal of the great fresco painters of the Italian Renaissance. Even to these he owes nothing, having borrowed nothing from them. But he shares with them his passionate love of truth, his nobility of inspiration and sincerity of execution.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherParkstone International
    Release dateApr 11, 2018
    ISBN9781683256717
    Puvis de Chavannes

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      Book preview

      Puvis de Chavannes - Arsène Alexandre

      Marcellin Desboutin, Portrait of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, 1895

      Oil on canvas, 120 x 80 cm. Musée de Picardie, Amiens.

      Biography

      1824: Pierre Cécile Puvis de Chavannes was born on 14 December in Lyon. His father was a mining engineer and wanted his son to join the École Polytechnique. Puvis de Chavannes attended secondary school at the Saint-Rambert college, Lyon.

      1841-1842: He arrives in Paris and begins studying Philosophy and Rhetoric at the Lycee Henri IV.

      1843: He prepares for the entrance exam for the École Polytechnique, but his health forces him to abandon his studies.

      1846: He travels to Italy for the first time.

      1847: He begins to study painting in the studio of Henry Scheffer.

      1848: Second trip to Italy. He studies briefly in the studio of Eugène Delacroix.

      1849: He studies for a short time in the studio of Thomas Couture.

      1850: He exhibits his first work at the Salon: Pietà.

      1851-1858: During this period the Salon rejects all of Puvis de Chavannes’ work.

      1852: He begins work in his studio in the Place Pigalle.

      1856: He meets Marie Cantacuzène in the studio of the painter Chassériau. They become friends and will marry forty years later.

      1859: He exhibits Return from the Hunt at the Salon. He begins to receive attention from critics.

      1861: His paintings War and Peace are a success. War is bought by the French state and Puvis offers them the Peace free of charge.

      1863: He exhibits Work and Rest at the Salon. The paintings complete the series begun some years earlier. The city of Amiens purchases two of the paintings.

      1867: His painting Sleep is exhibited at the Salon. He is commissioned to decorate the Palais Longchamp in Marseille. After this work he creates many large murals for other public buildings in France.

      1868: He moves into a second studio in Neuilly.

      1869-1884: He successfully exhibits many works at the Salon: Massilia, Greek Colony; Marseille, Gateway to the Orient; Charles Martel, Conqueror of the Saracens; St Genevieve as a Child in Prayer; The Prodigal Son; The Poor Fisherman; Ludus Pro Patria; The Toilette; The Sacred Wood Dear to the Arts and Muses, etc.

      1877: Inauguration of the wall decorations made for the Pantheon. He is appointed an Officer of the Legion of Honour.

      1887: He exhibits thirteen paintings at the National Academy of Design in New York. A solo exhibition is organised by Durand-Ruel in Paris.

      1890: He joins with Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, Carolus-Duran, Félix Bracquemond, Jules Dalou, and Auguste Rodin to reform the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts.

      1893: Having being asked for two years, Puvis de Chavannes accepts the commission to decorate the Boston library.

      1894: Solo exhibitions organised by Durand-Ruel in New York then in Paris. 

      1897: He marries Princess Marie Cantacuzène.

      1898: Puvis de Chavannes dies on 24 October at the age of seventy-four, just months after the death of his wife, and without having had time to complete his final composition for the walls of the Pantheon.

      Puvis de Chavannes is known for having painted many decorations that adorn public buildings. His compositions are only a part of a larger oeuvre that includes many paintings, drawings, sketches, and studies which allow us to follow the artistic development of the painter. The path followed by Puvis is not ordinary. His early paintings bear the marks of his direct influences, his first teachers. Then, little by little, he develops his own technique; shapes soften, and the colours he uses become more sober.

      Our purpose here is to present the artist through two distinct but complementary approaches. First we discover the artist and his creative journey in his most intimate surroundings; his studio. Then, we will take a step back and consider the ideas that shaped his work, his particular artistic process, as well as critiques that his techniques and work received.

      Life and Work by Arsène Alexandre

      As the remarkable personality of Puvis de Chavannes recedes into a remote past, which already seems as though it could be measured by centuries, the artist’s glory, pure and serene, shines forth brighter and brighter. His genius appears upon the horizon of art like a mountain peak towering above the clouds and mist.

      Those who were fortunate in his acquaintance experience the strange illusion of having enjoyed the friendship of a man who belonged to another epoch. We have known intimately several great artists, and have seen them pass away. Not one of them has left behind an impression of the same nature. We regretted them as men of our own time. In a sense they were comrades of a superior grade, but on the same human plane as ourselves. Puvis de Chavannes has left a more radiant image. A sage or poet of ancient Greece, a

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