1815-1879 French Thomas Couture Location French painter and teacher. A student of Antoine-Jean Gros in 1830-38 and Paul Delaroche in 1838-9, he demonstrated precocious ability in drawing and was expected to win the Prix de Rome. He tried at least six times between 1834 and 1839, but achieved only second prize in 1837 (entry untraced). Disgusted with the politics of the academic system, Couture withdrew and took an independent path. He later attacked the stultified curriculum of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and discouraged his own students from entering this institution. He first attained public notoriety at the Paris Salon with Young Venetians after an Orgy (1840; Montrouge, priv. col., see Boime, p. 85), the Prodigal Son (1841; Le Havre, Mus. B.-A.) and the Love of Gold (1844; Toulouse, Mus. Augustins). These early canvases are treated in a moralizing and anecdotal mode; the forms and compositional structures, like the debauched and corrupt protagonists, are sluggish and dull. Yet what made his work seem fresh to the Salon audience was his use of bright colour and surface texture derived from such painters as Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps and Eugene Delacroix, while his literary bent and methodical drawing demonstrated his mastery of academic tradition. The critics Thophile Gautier and Paul Mantz (1821-95) proclaimed him as the leader of a new school that mediated between the old and the new, and looked to him for a revitalization of Salon painting. The air of compromise his works projected made him appear a cultural representative of the juste milieu policies of Louis-Philippe.  Related Paintings of Thomas Couture :. | The Romans of the Decadence | Little Bather | The Romans of the Decadence | The Concert Singer | The Romans of the Decadence |
Related Artists:
Alfred Hirv
(born March 26, 1880 in Pechory - died May 26, 1918 in Pskov) was an Estonian painter, known especially for his still lifes. For a time he studied with Julius von Klever in Saint Petersburg; further studies took him to Rome and Munich, where he studied at the school of Anton Ažbe. His paintings are reminiscent of the style of the Dutch Golden Age. Works by Hirv can be found in the Estonian Art Museum.
Marie Bracquemond
French Impressionist Painter, 1840-1916 .was a French Impressionist artist described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of the "le trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt.However, her often omission from books on women artists indicate the success of her husband, F??lix Bracquemond, in his campaign to thwart her development as an artist.
antoine jean gros
Baron Antoine-Jean Gros (16 March 1771 ?C 25 June 1835), also known as Jean-Antoine Gros, was both a French History and neoclassical painter. Born in Paris, Gros began to learn to draw at the age of six from his father, who was a miniature painter, and showed himself as a gifted artist. Towards the close of 1785 Gros, by his own choice, entered the studio of Jacques-Louis David, which he frequented assiduously, continuing at the same time to follow the classes of the College Mazarin. Bataille d´Aboukir, 25 juillet 1799, 1806, (detail).The death of his father, whose circumstances had been embarrassed by the French Revolution, threw Gros, in 1791, upon his own resources. He now devoted himself wholly to his profession, and competed (unsuccessfully) in 1792 for the grand prix. About this time, however, on the recommendation of the École des Beaux Arts, he was employed on the execution of portraits of the members of the National Convention, and disturbed by the development of the Revolution, Gros left France in 1793 for Italy.