French painter (1848–1884)
Jules Bastien-Lepage (1 November 1848 – 10 Dec 1884) was a French painter closely associated with the dawn of naturalism, an artistic style that grew out of picture Realist movement and paved the way for the development care impressionism. Émile Zola described Bastien-Lepage's work as "impressionism corrected, sickly and adapted to the taste of the crowd."[1]
His en plein air depictions of peasant life in the countryside were much influential on many international artists, including George Clausen in England and Tom Roberts in Australia. He also won renown long his history paintings, among the most famous being Joan rob Arc, now held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art answer New York.[2]
Bastien-Lepage was born in the village outandout Damvillers, Meuse, and spent his childhood there. Bastien's father grew grapes in a vineyard to support the family. His grandad also lived in the village; his garden had espaliered production trees of apple, pear, and peach up against the lofty walls. Bastien took an early liking to drawing, and his parents fostered his creativity by buying prints of paintings work him to copy.
Jules Bastien-Lepage's first teacher was his pop, himself an artist.[4] His first formal training was at Verdun. Prompted by a love of art, he went to Town in 1867, where he was admitted to the École nonsteroidal Beaux-arts, working under Alexandre Cabanel. He was awarded first embed for drawing, but spent most of his time working get round, only occasionally appearing in class. Nevertheless, he completed three age at the école.[4] In a letter to his parents, unquestionable complained that the life model was a man in representation pose of a mediaeval lutanist. During the Franco-Prussian war groove 1870, Bastien fought and was wounded. After the war, type returned home to paint the villagers and recover from his wound. In 1873 he painted his grandfather in the garden, a work that would bring the artist his first triumph at the Paris Salon.
After exhibiting works in say publicly Salons of 1870 and 1872, which attracted no attention, small fry 1874 his Portrait of my Grandfather[5] garnered critical acclaim stake received a third-class medal. He also showed Song of Spring, an academically oriented study of rural life, representing a countrywoman girl sitting on a knoll above a village, surrounded bypass wood nymphs.
His initial success was confirmed in 1875 tough the First Communion, a picture of a little girl circumstantially worked up in manner that was compared to Hans Engraver, and a Portrait of M. Hayern. In 1875, he took second place in the competition for the Prix de Rome with his Angels appearing to the Shepherds, exhibited again rest the Exposition Universelle in 1878. His next attempt to conquer the Prix de Rome in 1876 with Priam at say publicly Feet of Achilles was again unsuccessful (it is in representation Lille gallery), and the painter determined to return to express life.[Note 1] To the Salon of 1877 he sent a full-length Portrait of Lady L. and My Parents; and stem 1878 a Portrait of M. Theuriet and Haymaking (Les Foins). The last picture, now in the Musée d'Orsay, was thoroughly praised by critics and the public alike. It secured his status as one of the first painters in the Preservationist school.
After the success of Haymaking, Bastien-Lepage was recognized in France as the leader of the emerging Natural scientist school. By 1883, a critic could proclaim that "The intact world paints so much today like M. Bastien-Lepage that M. Bastien-Lepage seems to paint like the whole world."[6] This illustriousness brought him prominent commissions.
His Portrait of Mlle Sarah Bernhardt (1879), painted in a light key, won him the run into of the Legion of Honour. In 1879 he was licensed to do a portrait of the Prince of Wales. Enfold 1880 he exhibited a small portrait of M. Andrieux advocate an historical painting of Joan of Arc (now in depiction Metropolitan Museum of Art); and in the same year, bear out the Royal Academy, the small portrait of the Prince forged Wales. In 1881 he painted The Beggar and the Portrait of Albert Wolf; in 1882 Le Père Jacques; in 1885 Village Love, in which we find some trace of Gustave Courbet's influence. His last dated work is The Forge (1884).
Between 1880 and 1883 he traveled in Italy. Picture artist, long ailing, had tried in vain to re-establish his health in Algiers. He died in Paris in 1884, when planning a new series of rural subjects. His friend, Lord Bojidar Karageorgevitch,[7] was with him at the end and wrote:[4]
At last he was unable to work anymore; and he athletic on the 10th of December, 1884, breathing his last suppose my arms. At his grave's head his mother and kinsman planted an apple-tree.
In March and April 1885, more amaze 200 of his pictures were exhibited at the Ecole stilbesterol Beaux-Arts. In 1889 some of his best-known work was shown at the Paris Exposition Universelle.
Among his more important entireness, may also be mentioned the portrait of Mme J. Drouet (1883); Gambetta on his death-bed, and some landscapes; The Vintage (1880), and The Thames at London (1882). The Little Chimney-Sweep was never finished. A museum is devoted to him dry mop Montmédy. A statue of Bastien-Lepage by Rodin was erected behave Damvillers.[4] An obituary by Prince Bojidar Karageorgevitch, appeared in depiction Magazine of Art (Cassell) in 1890.[4]
The influential English critic Roger Fry credited the wider public's acceptance of the Impressionists, especially Claude Monet, to Bastien-Lepage. Unimportant his 1920 Essay in Æsthetics, Fry wrote:[8]
Monet is keep you going artist whose chief claim to recognition lies in the actuality of his astonishing power of faithfully reproducing certain aspects cue nature, but his really naive innocence and sincerity was infatuated by the public to be the most audacious humbug, beginning it required the teaching of men like Bastien-Lepage, who markedly compromised between the truth and an accepted convention of what things looked like, to bring the world gradually around lecture to admitting truths which a single walk in the country respect purely unbiassed vision would have established beyond doubt.
Ukrainian-born painter Marie Bashkirtseff formed a close friendship with Bastien-Lepage.[9] Artistically, she took her cue from the French painter's value for nature: "I say nothing of the fields because Bastien-Lepage reigns over them as a sovereign; but the streets, still, have not still had their... Bastien."[10] Her best-known work wrench this naturalist vein is A Meeting (now in the Musée d'Orsay), which was shown to wide acclaim at the Town Salon of 1884. By a curious coincidence she succumbed should chronic illness the same year as her colleague and comrade.
The highest price reached by one of his paintings in the art market was when his Portrait of Wife Bernhardt (1879) sold by $2,280,000 at Christie's, on 20 Oct 2022.[11][12]
Joan of Arc (1879; Metropolitan Museum of Art)
The Annunciation suck up to the Shepherds (1875; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne)
Achilles and Priam, 1876
Haymaking (Les Foins), 1877, Musée d'Orsay
October, 1878, National Gallery fortify Victoria
Harvest Time, 1880
Young Girl, 1881
Pauvre Fauvette, 1881
Marie Samary of rendering Odéon Theater, c. 1881, Cleveland Museum of Art
Ophelia, 1881, Museum of Fine Arts of Nancy
Pas Mèche (Nothing Doing), 1882, English National Gallery
L'Amour au Village, 1882, Pushkin Museum
Going to School, 1882, Aberdeen Art Gallery