Books and Art

The Bust (1919). Georges Jules Auguste Cain (French, 1856–1919). Oil on canvas.

Cain was a historical painter, and writer who found inspiration in the history of Paris, its theaters and its monuments. A square in Paris is named after him: the Square Georges Cain, at the 8 Pagan Street, in the Marais, in the 3rd district, against the Carnavalet Museum to which he devoted much of his life.

The Pink Dancers, Before the Ballet (1884). Edgar Degas (French, Impressionism, 1834-1917). Oil on canvas. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen.

Degas likened the dancers’ training to his work as an artist. Just as he sketched the dancers’ every gesture and position to make his paintings as authentic as possible, the dancers performed countless repetitions to perfect their movements.

Degas sketched as he wandered the Opera House, filling his notebooks with drawings of dancers and then returning to his studio to compose and paint.

The Secret Admirer. Etienne Adolphe Piot (French,1850-1910). Oil on canvas.

As a painter of the female face, Piot had few equals. His idealized depiction of women and girls are full of sentimentality yet possess a technical skill that is of the highest level. Piot was a student of Leon Cogniet, at his Paris atelier, in the late 1870’s. Cogniet instilled within the young artist a love for the human form.

Eva Gonzalès (1870). Edouard Manet (French, 1832-1883). Oil on canvas. The National Gallery, London.

Gonzalès (1849-1883) entered Manet’s studio as his pupil in 1869. Manet is said to have begun a portrait soon after. It was exhibited at the Salon in 1870. The present whereabouts of the flower-piece shown on her easel in the painting is not known.

The Ballet Lesson (1914). Pierre Carrier-Belleuse (French,1851–1932). Oil on canvas.

Many of Carrier-Belleuse’s works are a homage to female beauty, a genre that, in differing guises, grew in popularity in the latter 19th century. It frequently appeared in the form of dancers at work or in repose, thus catering for a new breed of collector in Paris, those familiar with the dance halls and Follies. 

Life Class at the École des Beaux-Arts (Fauvist Nude), 1898. Albert Marquet (French, 1875-1947). Oil on canvas. Musee des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux.

Marquet exhibited paintings at the Salon des Indépendants. His early compositions were characterised by a clear and painterly Fauvist approach, in which he had a fine control of the drawing and responded to light, not only by intensifying the strongest tones, but also by seeing the weaker ones in coloristic terms.

Young Woman with Lowered Eyes (1869). Jean Frédéric Bazille (French, Impressionism, 1841-1870).

Admired by artists, critics, and scholars for the freshness and directness of his canvases and for the way in which he assimilated both radically new and academic techniques, Bazille may have become one of the greatest artists of the Impressionist generation had he lived longer.

Merchant of Images (c.1862). Alexandre Antigna (French, 1817-1878). Oil on canvas. Bordeaux, Museum of Fine Arts.

Until 1845 Antigna’s paintings were generally religious scenes and portraits. Yet, after living in the poor quarter of the Île Saint-Louis in Paris he would incorporate images of the suffering and burden of urban poor into his works. By the 1848 Revolution Antigna was devoted to the Realist style, and continued to paint in this manner until c.1860 when he began to produce paintings in the Naturalist vein.

Mademoiselle Marsollier (1757). Jean-Marc Nattier (French, 1685-1766). Oil on canvas.

By the mid 1750’s Nattier was attempting to divert from the heavily allegorical overtones of his earlier portraits and instead focus primarily on the beauty of his sitter’s faces on a more personal level as seen exemplified in Mademoiselle Marsollier. The bust length format with the sitter depicted full-face created a greater intimacy between viewer and subject.

Portrait of Anna Pitt as Hebe (1792). Louise Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun (French, Neoclassicism, 1755-1842). Oil on canvas. Hermitage, St. Petersburg. Hermitage painting may be a replica of one painted in 1790.

Anne Pitt (1772-1864) was the daughter of Thomas Pitt, Lord Camelford (1737-93), a politician and art connoisseur.

Hebe was the goddess of youth and the cupbearer of the gods who served ambrosia at the heavenly feast. She was also the patron goddess of the young bride and an attendant of the goddess Aphrodite.

Marie-Antoinette d’Autriche, reine de France (1755-1793), 1788. Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (French, 1755–1842). Oil on canvas. Palace of Versailles.

“I was so fortunate as to be on very pleasant terms with the Queen. When she heard that I had something of a voice, we rarely had a sitting without singing some duets by Grétry together, for she was exceedingly fond of music, though she did not sing very much in tune. As for her conversation, it would be difficult for me to convey all of its charm, its affability.” — Vigée Le Brun

L’Élève intéressante. Marguerite Gérard (French, 1761–1837). Jean-Honoré Fragonard (French, 1732–1806). Oil on canvas.

There is collaboration between Gérard and Fragonard, her brother-in-law and, at times, her teacher. The student contemplates The Fountain of Love by Fragonard, while at her feet, the ball reflects Gérard at her easel, next to Fragonard.

Madame Grand (Noël-Catherine Verlée, 1761–1835), Later Madame Talleyrand-Périgord, Princesse de Bénévent (1783). Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (French, 1755–1842). Oil on canvas. MMOA.

The sitter married George Grand. After amorous adventures in Calcutta and London, she settled in Paris in 1783, the year this portrait was exhibited at the Salon. She was eventually divorced and in 1802 married the diplomat Talleyrand. Contemporary descriptions of her Nordic beauty match her appearance here. Her expression, reminiscent of the 17th-century Italian painter Guido Reni, may also have been intended to suggest her indolent and ingenuous nature.

Lucy Hessel Reading (1913). Édouard Vuillard (French, 1868–1940). Oil on canvas. The Jewish Museum, New York.

“I don’t do portraits,” Vuillard once said. “I paint people in their surroundings.” He painted the look and texture of wealthy Jewish intellectual life at the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th. He painted social status, psychology, a world that would soon be destroyed by war.

The Mother and Sister of the Artist (1869/1870). Berthe Morisot (French, 1841-1895). Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art.

Berthe Morisot told her mother that she would “rather be at the bottom of the sea” than for this picture to appear at the Salon due to the “assistance” of her friend and future brother-in-law Edouard Manet. Visiting, Manet took up a brush, and as Morisot described: “…it isn’t possible to stop him; he passes from the petticoat to the bodice, from the bodice to the head, from the head to the background.” In the mother’s face and dark costume Manet’s strong, broad brushstrokes are discernible.