Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret: From Fame to Obscurity

 Previously, I wrote a blog on how it became possible for artists to paint outside (plein air). Why? Because paints became available in tubes and the railroad made it easier to travel to the country. 

The other great advance was in photography which minimized the need for photo-realistic painting and moved art towards Naturalism and then Impressionism.. (It's difficult to differentiate between the two as they overlap in time and style.).

 

 Naturalism replaced Romanticism where settings were idealized often in Greco-Roman settings. Plein-air gave rise to naturaisticl backgrounds and settings. Impressionism took it a step further by using a natural environment but without requiring the same level of detail.

 

 

In that way, a once very famous painter is referred to as a Naturalist. His name is not well-known nor his works studied in recent times. He was Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret (1852-1929). He was French classically trained . Yet, like many young people, he was interested in the new technology of photography. (His painting of the photographer while he paints the wedding in a bit ironical.)   

 

 Dagnan-Bouveret's interest in using photographs together with his classical training, aided him in creating his Naturalist works. His teacher commented:

"...he was among the most forward-looking members of the academic tradition; he recognized that the “old" classical system of planning a composition had to respond to the new technologies that were already being applied and assimilated by painters of the avant-garde."

 This ability to create studies from photographs and combine them with other sketches of photo backgrounds such as his  “Les Bretonnes au Pardon" (“Breton Women at a Pardon").He won both the Grand Prize and Medal of Honor at the 1889 Exposition to great acclaim by the audience. It made him an artist of great renown. (Here is the photo of the original scene plus he would use other photos for his sketches to complete the scene shown below.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 As innovative and popular as he was until the turn of the century, like so many classically trained artists, Dagnan-Bouveret's art was considered outdated, and even though he continued to paint for the rest of his life, his works and his name fell into obscurity. (Below is his version of Madonna and child)