1.
Joseph Csaky
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Joseph Csaky was a Hungarian avant-garde artist, sculptor, and graphic artist, best known for his early participation as a sculptor in the Cubist movement. Joseph Csaky was one of the first sculptors in Paris to apply the principles of pictorial Cubism to his art, a pioneer of modern sculpture, Csaky is among the most important sculptors of the early 20th century. He was an member of the Section dOr group between 1911 and 1914, and closely associated with De Stijl and Purism throughout the 1920s. Csaky fought alongside French soldiers during World War I and in 1922 became a naturalized French citizen and he was a founding member of lUnion des Artistes modernes in 1929. During World War II, Csaky joined forces with the French underground movement in Valençay, in the late 1920s, he collaborated with some other artists in designing furniture and other decorative pieces, including elements of the Studio House for the designer Jacques Doucet. After 1928, Csaky moved away from Cubism into a figurative or representational style for nearly thirty years. He exhibited internationally across Europe, but some of his pioneering artistic innovation was forgotten and his work today is primarily held by French and Hungarian institutions, as well as galleries and private collections both in France and abroad. József Csáky was born in Szeged, Hungary, then part of the monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A provincial southern city, Szeged is now the third-largest in the country, Csaky moved with his family to Budapest at an early age, where he frequented museums and galleries. In 1905 Csaky was accepted at the Academy of Applied Arts in Budapest, where he studied under the direction of the sculptor Mátrai Lajos, ifj. for one and a half years. In 1907, for six and a half months, he worked in the Zsolnay Factory in Pécs, making ceramic ashtrays and he worked briefly as a metal founder in Budapest, and at one point with a taxidermist. Attracted by its reputation for lights and great artists, Csaky made the decision to move to Paris France and he traveled mostly by foot, walking fifty or sixty kilometers per day during the summer of 1908. In Paris a new world opened up for him and he made a living by doing odd jobs, working as a peddler, stone cutter, and posing as a model for students at a local art school, making 20 francs a week. He later posed for artists in their own studios, making more money. By autumn of 1908 he shared a space at Cité Falguière with Joseph Brummer. Within three weeks of Csakys arrival in Paris, Brummer showed the newcomer a sculpture he was working on, Brummer told Csaky that another artist in Paris, a Spaniard named Pablo Picasso, was painting in the spirit of Negro sculptures. Shortly after, Csaky found a studio at the artists collective La Ruche in Montparnasse, the building had been constructed by Gustave Eiffel, and was adapted as artists studios by the sculptor Alfred Boucher. Among other émigré artists at La Ruche were Alexander Archipenko, Wladimir Baranoff-Rossine, with his discovery of the work of Auguste Rodin laying the groundwork for an oeuvre characterized by a mastery of sculptural techniques, Csakys work in stone carving would evolve
2.
Cubism
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Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. Cubism has been considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century, the term is broadly used in association with a wide variety of art produced in Paris during the 1910s and extending through the 1920s. The movement was pioneered by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, joined by Andre Lhote, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, Fernand Léger and Juan Gris. A primary influence that led to Cubism was the representation of form in the late works of Paul Cézanne. The impact of Cubism was far-reaching and wide-ranging, Cubism spread rapidly across the globe and in doing so evolved to a greater or lesser extent. In essence, Cubism was the origin of a process that produced diversity. In France, offshoots of Cubism developed, including Orphism, Abstract art, in other countries Futurism, Suprematism, Dada, Constructivism, De Stijl and Art Deco developed in response to Cubism. Other common threads between these movements include the faceting or simplification of geometric forms, and the association of mechanization. Cubism began between 1907 and 1911, Pablo Picassos 1907 painting Les Demoiselles dAvignon has often been considered a proto-Cubist work. Georges Braques 1908 Houses at L’Estaque prompted the critic Louis Vauxcelles to refer to bizarreries cubiques, Gertrude Stein referred to landscapes made by Picasso in 1909, such as Reservoir at Horta de Ebro, as the first Cubist paintings. A second phase, Synthetic Cubism, remained vital until around 1919, english art historian Douglas Cooper proposed another scheme, describing three phases of Cubism in his book, The Cubist Epoch. Douglas Coopers restrictive use of terms to distinguish the work of Braque, Picasso, Gris. Alternative interpretations of Cubism have therefore developed, wider views of Cubism include artists who were later associated with the Salle 41 artists, e. g. John Berger identifies the essence of Cubism with the mechanical diagram. The metaphorical model of Cubism is the diagram, The diagram being a symbolic representation of invisible processes, forces, structures. A diagram need not eschew certain aspects of appearance but these too will be treated as not as imitations or recreations. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Europeans were discovering African, Polynesian, Micronesian, artists such as Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso were intrigued and inspired by the stark power and simplicity of styles of those foreign cultures. Around 1906, Picasso met Matisse through Gertrude Stein, at a time when artists had recently acquired an interest in primitivism, Iberian sculpture, African art and African tribal masks. Picassos paintings of 1907 have been characterized as Protocubism, as seen in Les Demoiselles dAvignon
3.
Hungary
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Hungary is a unitary parliamentary republic in Central Europe. With about 10 million inhabitants, Hungary is a member state of the European Union. The official language is Hungarian, which is the most widely spoken language in Europe. Hungarys capital and largest metropolis is Budapest, a significant economic hub, major urban areas include Debrecen, Szeged, Miskolc, Pécs and Győr. His great-grandson Stephen I ascended to the throne in 1000, converting the country to a Christian kingdom, by the 12th century, Hungary became a middle power within the Western world, reaching a golden age by the 15th century. Hungarys current borders were established in 1920 by the Treaty of Trianon after World War I, when the country lost 71% of its territory, 58% of its population, following the interwar period, Hungary joined the Axis Powers in World War II, suffering significant damage and casualties. Hungary became a state of the Soviet Union, which contributed to the establishment of a four-decade-long communist dictatorship. On 23 October 1989, Hungary became again a democratic parliamentary republic, in the 21st century, Hungary is a middle power and has the worlds 57th largest economy by nominal GDP, as well as the 58th largest by PPP, out of 188 countries measured by the IMF. As a substantial actor in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds 36th largest exporter and importer of goods, Hungary is a high-income economy with a very high standard of living. It keeps up a security and universal health care system. Hungary joined the European Union in 2004 and part of the Schengen Area since 2007, Hungary is a member of the United Nations, NATO, WTO, World Bank, the AIIB, the Council of Europe and Visegrád Group. Well known for its cultural history, Hungary has been contributed significantly to arts, music, literature, sports and science. Hungary is the 11th most popular country as a tourist destination in Europe and it is home to the largest thermal water cave system, the second largest thermal lake in the world, the largest lake in Central Europe, and the largest natural grasslands in Europe. The H in the name of Hungary is most likely due to historical associations with the Huns. The rest of the word comes from the Latinized form of Medieval Greek Oungroi, according to an explanation the Greek name was borrowed from Proto-Slavic Ǫgǔri, in turn borrowed from Oghur-Turkic Onogur. Onogur was the name for the tribes who later joined the Bulgar tribal confederacy that ruled the eastern parts of Hungary after the Avars. The Hungarians likely belonged to the Onogur tribal alliance and it is possible they became its ethnic majority. The Hungarian endonym is Magyarország, composed of magyar and ország, the word magyar is taken from the name of one of the seven major semi-nomadic Hungarian tribes, magyeri
4.
Sculpture
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Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts, a wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or molded, or cast. However, most ancient sculpture was painted, and this has been lost. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, India and China, the Western tradition of sculpture began in ancient Greece, and Greece is widely seen as producing great masterpieces in the classical period. During the Middle Ages, Gothic sculpture represented the agonies and passions of the Christian faith, the revival of classical models in the Renaissance produced famous sculptures such as Michelangelos David. Relief is often classified by the degree of projection from the wall into low or bas-relief, high relief, sunk-relief is a technique restricted to ancient Egypt. Relief sculpture may also decorate steles, upright slabs, usually of stone, techniques such as casting, stamping and moulding use an intermediate matrix containing the design to produce the work, many of these allow the production of several copies. The term sculpture is used mainly to describe large works. The very large or colossal statue has had an enduring appeal since antiquity, another grand form of portrait sculpture is the equestrian statue of a rider on horse, which has become rare in recent decades. The smallest forms of life-size portrait sculpture are the head, showing just that, or the bust, small forms of sculpture include the figurine, normally a statue that is no more than 18 inches tall, and for reliefs the plaquette, medal or coin. Sculpture is an important form of public art, a collection of sculpture in a garden setting can be called a sculpture garden. One of the most common purposes of sculpture is in form of association with religion. Cult images are common in cultures, though they are often not the colossal statues of deities which characterized ancient Greek art. The actual cult images in the innermost sanctuaries of Egyptian temples, of which none have survived, were rather small. The same is true in Hinduism, where the very simple. Some undoubtedly advanced cultures, such as the Indus Valley civilization, appear to have had no monumental sculpture at all, though producing very sophisticated figurines, the Mississippian culture seems to have been progressing towards its use, with small stone figures, when it collapsed. Other cultures, such as ancient Egypt and the Easter Island culture, from the 20th century the relatively restricted range of subjects found in large sculpture expanded greatly, with abstract subjects and the use or representation of any type of subject now common. Today much sculpture is made for intermittent display in galleries and museums, small sculpted fittings for furniture and other objects go well back into antiquity, as in the Nimrud ivories, Begram ivories and finds from the tomb of Tutankhamun
5.
Salon d'Automne
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The Salon dAutomne, or Société du Salon dautomne, is an annual art exhibition held in Paris, France since 1903. During the Salons early years, established such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir threw their support behind the new exhibition. Foreign artists are well represented. The Salon dAutomne also boasts the presence of a politician and patron of the arts and this was the idea behind Jourdains dream of opening a new Salon des Refusés in the late 1890s, and realized in the opening the Salon dAutomne in 1903. Providing a venue where artists could be recognized, while wrestling the public out of its complacency were, to Jourdain. The platform of the Salon dAutomne was based on an open admission, jurors were members of society itself, not members of the Academy, the state, or official art establishments. Refused exhibition space in the Grand Palais, the first Salon dAutomne was held in the poorly lit and it was backed financially by Jansen. While Rodin applauded the endeavor, and submitted drawings, he refused to join doubting it would succeed, notwithstanding, the first Salon dAutomne, which included works by Matisse, Bonnard and other progressive artists, was unexpectedly successful, and was met with wide critical acclaim. Even Paul Signac, president of the Salon des Indépendants, never forgave Jourdain for having founded a rival salon, what he had not predicted was a retaliation that threatened the future of the new salon. Carolus-Duran threatened to ban from his Société established artists who might consider exhibiting at the Salon dAutomne, retaliating in defense of Jourdain, Eugène Carrière issued a statement that if forced to choose, he would join the Salon dAutomne and resign from the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. The valuable publicity generated by the articles on the controversy worked in favor of the Salon dAutomne. Thus, Eugène Carrière saved the burgeoning salon, Henri Marcel, sympathetic to the Salon dAutomne, became director of the Beaux-Arts, and assured it would take place at the prestigious Grand Palais the following year. The success of the Salon dAutomne was not, however, due to such controversy, success was due to the tremendous impact of its exhibitions on both the art world and the general public, extending from 1903 to the outset of the First World War. He soon became known as a staunch critic of traditionalism and a fervent proponent of Modernism, yet even for him. The first Salon dAutumne exhibition opened 31 October 1903 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris in Paris, Albert Gleizes exhibited two paintings, Vieux moulin à Montons-Villiers and Le matin à Courbevoie. A room at the 1904 Salon dAutome was dedicated to Paul Cézanne, with works, including various portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, flowers, landscapes. Another room presented works of Puvis de Chavannes, with 44 works, and another was dedicated to Odilon Redon with 64 works, including paintings, drawings and lithographs. Auguste Renoir and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec too were represented in separate rooms with 35 and 28 works respectively, Vauxcelles described their work with the phrase Donatello chez les fauves, contrasting the orgy of pure tones with a Renaissance-style sculpture that shared the room with them
6.
National Assembly (France)
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The National Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of France under the Fifth Republic. The upper house is the Senate, the National Assemblys members are known as députés. There are 577 députés, each elected by a constituency through a two-round voting system. Thus,289 seats are required for a majority, the assembly is presided over by a president, normally from the largest party represented, assisted by vice-presidents from across the represented political spectrum. The term of the National Assembly is five years, however and it is guarded by Republican Guards. The Constitution of the French Fifth Republic greatly increased the power of the executive at the expense of Parliament, the President of the Republic can decide to dissolve the National Assembly and call for new legislative elections. This is meant as a way to resolve stalemates where the Assembly cannot decide on a political direction. The National Assembly can overthrow the government by a vote of no confidence. For this reason, the minister and his cabinet are necessarily from the dominant party or coalition in the assembly. The Government used to set the priorities of the agenda for the Assemblys sessions and this, however, was amended on 23 July 2008. Under the amended constitution, the Government sets the priorities for two weeks in a month, another week is designated for the Assemblys control prerogatives. And the fourth one is set by the Assembly, also, one day per month is set by a minority or opposition group. Members of the assembly can ask written or oral questions to ministers, the Wednesday afternoon 3 p. m. session of questions to the Government is broadcast live on television. Like Prime Ministers Questions in Britain, it is largely a show for the viewers, with members of the majority asking flattering questions, while the opposition tries to embarrass the government. Since 1988, the 577 deputies are elected by universal suffrage with a two-round system by constituency, for a five-year mandate. The constituencies each have approximately 100,000 inhabitants, however, districts were not redrawn between 1982 and 2009. As a result of population movements over that period, there were inequalities between the less populous rural districts and the urban districts, the constituencies were redrawn in 2009, but this redistribution was controversial. Among other controversial measures, it created eleven constituencies and seats for French residents overseas, albeit without increasing the overall number of seats beyond 577
7.
Art Nouveau
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Art Nouveau is an international style of art, architecture and applied art, especially the decorative arts, that was most popular between 1890 and 1910. A reaction to the art of the 19th century, it was inspired by natural forms and structures, particularly the curved lines of plants. English uses the French name Art Nouveau, according to the philosophy of the style, art should be a way of life. For many well-off Europeans, it was possible to live in an art nouveau-inspired house with art nouveau furniture, silverware, fabrics, ceramics including tableware, jewellery, cigarette cases, artists desired to combine the fine arts and applied arts, even for utilitarian objects. By 1910, Art Nouveau was already out of style and it was replaced as the dominant European architectural and decorative style first by Art Deco and then by Modernism. Art Nouveau took its name from the Maison de lArt Nouveau, in France, Art Nouveau was also sometimes called by the British term Modern Style due to its roots in the Arts and Crafts Movement, Style moderne, or Style 1900. It was also sometimes called Style Jules Verne, Le Style Métro, Art Belle Époque, in Belgium, where the architectural movement began, it was sometimes termed Style nouille or Style coup de fouet. In Britain, it was known as the Modern Style, or, because of the arts and crafts movement led by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Glasgow, as the Glasgow style. In Italy, because of the popularity in Italy of designs from Londons Liberty & Co department store, in the United States, due to its association with Louis Comfort Tiffany, it was often called the Tiffany style. In Germany and Scandinavia, a style emerged at about the same time, it was called Jugendstil. In Catalonia the related style was known as Modernisme, in Spain as Modernismo, Arte joven, in Russia, it was called Modern, and Jugendstil, and Nieuwe Kunst in the Netherlands. Some names refer specifically to the forms that were popular with the Art Nouveau artists, Stile Floreal in France, Paling Stijl in the Netherlands. The new art movement had its roots in Britain, in the designs of William Morris. Early prototypes of the include the Red House of Morris. In France, the style combined several different tendencies, in architecture, it was influenced by the architectural theorist and historian Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, a declared enemy of the historical Beaux-Arts architectural style. For each function its material, for each material its form and this book influenced a generation of architects, including Louis Sullivan, Victor Horta, Hector Guimard, and Antoni Gaudí. The French painters Maurice Denis, Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard played an important part in integrating fine arts painting with decoration, I believe that before everything a painting must decorate, Denis wrote in 1891. The choice of subjects or scenes is nothing and it is by the value of tones, the colored surface and the harmony of lines that I can reach the spirit and wake up the emotions
8.
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
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Pierre Puvis de Chavannes was a French painter best known for his mural painting, who came to be known as the painter for France. He became the co-founder and president of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Puvis de Chavannes was a prominent painter in the early Third Republic. Émile Zola described his work as an art made of reason, passion, Puvis de Chavannes was born Pierre-Cécile Puvis in a suburb of Lyon, France. He was the son of a mining engineer, being descended from an old noble family of Burgundy, he later added the ancestral de Chavannes to his name. Throughout his life, however, he spurned his Lyon origins, preferring to identify himself with the blood of the Burgundians. Puvis de Chavannes was educated at the Amiens College and at the Lycée Henri IV in Paris and he intended to follow his fathers profession until a serious illness compelled him to convalesce at Mâcon with his brother and sister-in-law in 1844 and 1845, interrupting his studies. A journey to Italy opened his mind to fresh ideas, and he studied first under Eugène Delacroix, but only very briefly, as Delacroix closed his studio shortly afterwards due to ill health. He studied subsequently under Henri Scheffer and then Thomas Couture and his training was not classical as he found that he preferred to work alone. He took a studio near the Gare de Lyon and attended anatomy classes at the Académie des Beaux Arts. It was not until a number of later, when the government of France acquired one of his works. Puvis de Chavannes made his Salon debut in 1850 with Dead Christ, Negro Boy, The Reading Lesson, and Portrait of a Man. In Montmartre, he had an affair with one of his models, Suzanne Valadon, who would one of the leading artists of the day as well as the mother, teacher. One of his protégés was Georges de Feure, Puvis de Chavannes is best known for his mural painting, and came to be known as the painter for France. His first commission was for his brothers chateau, Le Brouchy, the principal decorations take the four seasons as their theme. His first public commissions came early in the 1860s, with work at the Musée de Picardie at Amiens, the first four works were Concordia, Bellum, Le Travail and Le Repos. Over the course of his career, Puvis received a number of commissions for works to be carried out in public. His early work at the Musée de Picardie had helped him to develop his style. Among his public works are the later cycles completed at Amiens, at Marseille, at Lyon, of particular importance is the cycle at the Palais de Beaux Arts in Lyon, which includes three significant works, filling the wall space in the main staircase
9.
Auguste Rodin
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François Auguste René Rodin, known as Auguste Rodin, was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past and he was schooled traditionally, took a craftsman-like approach to his work, and desired academic recognition, although he was never accepted into Pariss foremost school of art. Sculpturally, Rodin possessed an ability to model a complex, turbulent. Many of his most notable sculptures were roundly criticized during his lifetime and they clashed with predominant figurative sculpture traditions, in which works were decorative, formulaic, or highly thematic. Rodins most original work departed from traditional themes of mythology and allegory, modeled the human body with realism, Rodin was sensitive to the controversy surrounding his work, but refused to change his style. Successive works brought increasing favor from the government and the artistic community, by 1900, he was a world-renowned artist. Wealthy private clients sought Rodins work after his Worlds Fair exhibit and he married his lifelong companion, Rose Beuret, in the last year of both their lives. His sculptures suffered a decline in popularity after his death in 1917, Rodin remains one of the few sculptors widely known outside the visual arts community. Rodin was born in 1840 into a family in Paris, the second child of Marie Cheffer and Jean-Baptiste Rodin. He was largely self-educated, and began to draw at age ten, between ages 14 and 17, Rodin attended the Petite École, a school specializing in art and mathematics, where he studied drawing and painting. His drawing teacher, Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, believed in first developing the personality of his students so that they observed with their own eyes, Rodin still expressed appreciation for his teacher much later in life. It was at Petite École that he first met Jules Dalou, in 1857, Rodin submitted a clay model of a companion to the École des Beaux-Arts in an attempt to win entrance, he did not succeed, and two further applications were also denied. Given that entrance requirements at the Grande École were not particularly high, Rodins inability to gain entrance may have been due to the judges Neoclassical tastes, while Rodin had been schooled in light, 18th-century sculpture. Leaving the Petite École in 1857, Rodin earned a living as a craftsman, Rodins sister Maria, two years his senior, died of peritonitis in a convent in 1862. Rodin was anguished and felt guilty because he had introduced Maria to an unfaithful suitor, turning away from art, he briefly joined a Catholic order, the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament. Saint Peter Julian Eymard, founder and head of the congregation, recognized Rodins talent and, sensing his lack of suitability for the order and he returned to work as a decorator, while taking classes with animal sculptor Antoine-Louis Barye. The teachers attention to detail – his finely rendered musculature of animals in motion – significantly influenced Rodin, in 1864, Rodin began to live with a young seamstress named Rose Beuret, with whom he would stay – with ranging commitment – for the rest of his life. The couple had a son, Auguste-Eugène Beuret and that year, Rodin offered his first sculpture for exhibition, and entered the studio of Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, a successful mass producer of objets dart
10.
Gustave Courbet
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Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and his independence set an example that was important to later artists, such as the Impressionists and the Cubists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th-century French painting as an innovator, Courbets paintings of the late 1840s and early 1850s brought him his first recognition. They challenged convention by depicting unidealized peasants and workers, often on a grand scale traditionally reserved for paintings of religious or historical subjects, Courbets subsequent paintings were mostly of a less overtly political character, landscapes, seascapes, hunting scenes, nudes and still lifes. He was imprisoned for six months in 1871 for his involvement with the Paris Commune, Gustave Courbet was born in 1819 to Régis and Sylvie Oudot Courbet in Ornans. Being a prosperous farming family, anti-monarchical feelings prevailed in the household, Courbets sisters, Zoé, Zélie and Juliette, were his first models for drawing and painting. After moving to Paris he often returned home to Ornans to hunt, fish and he went to Paris in 1839 and worked at the studio of Steuben and Hesse. An independent spirit, he left, preferring to develop his own style by studying the paintings of Spanish, Flemish and French masters in the Louvre. Among his paintings of the early 1840s are several self-portraits, Romantic in conception, trips to the Netherlands and Belgium in 1846–47 strengthened Courbets belief that painters should portray the life around them, as Rembrandt, Hals and other Dutch masters had. By 1848, he had gained supporters among the younger critics, Courbet achieved his first Salon success in 1849 with his painting After Dinner at Ornans. The work, reminiscent of Chardin and Le Nain, earned Courbet a gold medal and was purchased by the state, the gold medal meant that his works would no longer require jury approval for exhibition at the Salon—an exemption Courbet enjoyed until 1857. In 1849-50, Courbet painted Stone-Breakers, which Proudhon admired as an icon of peasant life, the painting was inspired by a scene Courbet witnessed on the roadside. He later explained to Champfleury and the writer Francis Wey, It is not often that one encounters so complete an expression of poverty and so, right then, I told them to come to my studio the next morning. Courbets work belonged neither to the predominant Romantic nor Neoclassical schools, instead, he maintained that the only possible source for living art is the artists own experience. He and Jean-Francois Millet would find inspiration painting the life of peasants, Courbet painted figurative compositions, landscapes, seascapes, and still lifes. He courted controversy by addressing issues in his work, and by painting subjects that were considered vulgar, such as the rural bourgeoisie, peasants. His work, along with that of Honoré Daumier and Jean-François Millet and he depicted the harshness in life, and in so doing challenged contemporary academic ideas of art. The Salon of 1850–1851 found him triumphant with The Stone Breakers, the Burial, one of Courbets most important works, records the funeral of his grand uncle which he attended in September 1848
11.
Georges Seurat
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Georges-Pierre Seurat was a French post-Impressionist painter and draftsman. He is noted for his use of drawing media and for devising the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism. His large-scale work, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, altered the direction of art by initiating Neo-impressionism. Seurat was born 2 December 1859 in Paris, at 60 rue de Bondy, the Seurat family moved to 136 boulevard de Magenta in 1862 or 1863. His father, Antoine Chrysostome Seurat, originally from Champagne, was a legal official who had become wealthy from speculating in property. Georges had a brother, Émile Augustin, and a sister, Marie-Berthe and his father lived in Le Raincy and visited his wife and children once a week at boulevard de Magenta. Georges Seurat first studied art at the École Municipale de Sculpture et Dessin, near his familys home in the boulevard Magenta, Seurats studies resulted in a well-considered and fertile theory of contrasts, a theory to which all his work was thereafter subjected. His formal artistic education came to an end in November 1879, after a year at the Brest Military Academy, he returned to Paris where he shared a studio with his friend Aman-Jean, while also renting a small apartment at 16 rue de Chabrol. For the next two years, he worked at mastering the art of monochrome drawing and his first exhibited work, shown at the Salon, of 1883, was a Conté crayon drawing of Aman-Jean. He also studied the works of Eugène Delacroix carefully, making notes on his use of color and he spent 1883 working on his first major painting—a large canvas titled Bathers at Asnières, a monumental work showing young men relaxing by the Seine in a working-class suburb of Paris. Seurat also departed from the Impressionist ideal by preparing for the work with a number of drawings, Bathers at Asnières was rejected by the Paris Salon, and instead he showed it at the Groupe des Artistes Indépendants in May 1884. Seurats new ideas on pointillism were to have a strong influence on Signac. In the summer of 1884, Seurat began work on A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, the painting shows members of each of the social classes participating in various park activities. The tiny juxtaposed dots of multi-colored paint allow the eye to blend colors optically. It took Seurat two years to complete this 10-foot-wide painting, much of which he spent in the park sketching in preparation for the work and it is now in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. The painting was the inspiration for James Lapine and Stephen Sondheims musical, Seurat concealed his relationship with Madeleine Knobloch, an artists model whom he portrayed in his painting Jeune femme se poudrant. In 1889 she moved in with Seurat in his studio on the 7th floor of 128bis Boulevard de Clichy, when Madeleine became pregnant, the couple moved to a studio at 39 passage de lÉlysée-des-Beaux-Arts. There she gave birth to their son, who was named Pierre-Georges,16 February 1890, Seurat died in Paris in his parents home on 29 March 1891 at the age of 31
