57) Romans in the Decadence of the Empire by Thomas Couture 1815-1879image from artrenewal.org
Couture was another shoemaker's son and was from Senlis, a small town about 40 miles from Paris. Like so many great French painter he was from a working class background. Trained under Baron Gros he was a sensational young artist. The painting above is a modernized version of the "grand style'. He was strongly influenced by the venetian, Veronese. The silver color and classicism of the piece are balanced with a romantic conception that appeared contemporary to his viewers. This 1847 painting made him famous and is his masterpiece. He began to receive many portrait commissions and was a master at that genre.
Above; The WidowCouture had a falling out with the Academy and opened his own atelier, rejecting the official means of teaching young artists. Couture taught Eduard Manet, Henri Fantin Latour, Puvis de Chavannes ( a muralist) and the American, John La Farge
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7 comments:
Awesome! Couture is a great painter. He wrote a book on painting which is available for free in English. It outlines conversations that he had, along with his philosophy of painting.
http://books.google.com/books?id=lLhCAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=thomas+couture&hl=en&ei=jiu5TdHuO5GksQPjyejlBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CFMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false
That portrait makes me want to do portraiture again.
Shorter link to Couture's book (the first one I posted got cut off)
http://tinyurl.com/coutureeng
Ramon;
Thanks, I wish I could print all of those online books. I don't like reading them on my computer. I guess if I got a Kindle I could read them happily on that.
................Stape
Marian;l
I always want to paint figures and heads. I don't have the social chops to be a portrait painter though.
..................Stape
Ramon;
OK, shorter.
...............Stape
Yeah..I know what you mean. I like painting from life and I like models with faces that I find interesting is some way. They are usually strangers on trains and I've never been able to go up to them and say " spend 12 hours of you life sitting still so I can paint you". I could never paint commissioned portraits! I never see what I am suppose to see. it's where the social niceties come in.
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