Pierre Puvis de Chavannes: Recipes of Classicism and Mystery

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes - The River - 1865 - Oil on paper laid down on canvas - 51 x 99 1/4 in. (129.5 x 252.1 cm) - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (click photo for larger image)Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898) was the foremost French mural painter of the second half of the 19th century. He decorated many public buildings in France and also the Boston Public Library. His paintings were done on canvas and then affixed to the walls (marouflage), but their pale colors imitated the effect of fresco. He had only modest success early in his career (when a private income enabled him to work for little payment), but he went on to achieve an enormous reputation. He was universally respected even by artists with very different aims and outlooks from his own. Gauguin, Seurat, and Toulouse-Lautrec were among his professed admirers. His work is a unique synthesis of Symbolist objectives with a Baroque-style flair.