- BASTIEN-LEPAGE, Jules
(1848-84)
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Painter
- Jules Bastien-Lepage exhibited at the Salon from 1870 until the
end of his short life. Most of his exhibits were portraits, but he is now
remembered for his rustic genre scenes — his masterpiece, The Haymakers (1877),
is in the Louvre — and there was much contemporary discussion of his truthfulness
to the Lorraine countryside. By comparison with the Realism
of Millet
he
seems sentimental, but it was for just this absence of sentimentality that he
was criticized in London, because, despite the brilliant colour, his factual
representation of the miserable poverty of rural life ran counter to contemporary
taste for which country life was deemed to be particularly idyllic and poverty
was picturesque.
His work was popular in Scotland (pictures in Aberdeen,
Edinburgh and Glasgow), and he probably influenced the Glasgow School.
Zola described his type of picture as Impressionism sweetened
into popularity,
which was accurate so far as his colour and detailed technique were concerned,
but ignored the important social comment. There are works in Dublin, The
Hague, Moscow, New York (Met. Mus.), and many French provincial
museums.
- Source: The Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists (Penguin Reference Books)
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