The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (67 page)

(1824–98).
French painter. Son of a sailor, he ran a stationery and picture-framing business at Le Havre (1844–9), where his clients included Jean-François
Millet
, who encouraged him to paint.
Courbet
,
Jongkind
, and
Corot
were among his friends. He was a strong advocate of direct painting from nature, and had a great influence on the young
Monet
, whom he introduced to
plein-air
painting. Boudin's own paintings consist mainly of beach scenes and seascapes from the coast of northern France and are distinguished by the prominence given to luminous skies. He is regarded as a link between the painters of the generation of Corot and the
Impressionists
, and he exhibited in the first Impressionist exhibition of 1874. There is a Boudin Museum in Honfleur, his native town.

 
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(1825–1905).
French painter. In 1850 he won the
Prix de Rome
, and after his return to France in 1854 he became an immensely successful and influential exponent of academic art, upholding traditional values and contriving to exclude avant-garde work from the
Salon
—
Cézanne
once expressed regret at being excluded from the ‘Salon de Monsieur Bouguereau’. He painted portraits of photographic verisimilitude, slick and sentimental religious works, and coyly erotic nudes. For many years damned unequivocally as a ‘master in the hierarchy of mediocrity’ (J.-K. Huysmans ) and an opponent of all progressive ideas, Bouguereau has recently achieved something of a rehabilitation, his work becoming the subject of serious study and fetching huge prices in the saleroom.

 
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(1861–1929).
French sculptor, born at Montauban. As a boy he obtained practical experience of carving in the workshop of his father, a cabinet maker. In 1876 he began to study at the École des Beaux-Arts, Toulouse, from where he won a scholarship to the École des
Beaux-Arts
, Paris, in 1884. However, he shortly left the school and worked for a while with Jules
Dalou
before becoming
Rodin's
chief assistant from 1893 to 1908. Bourdelle's work has been somewhat over shadowed by his association with Rodin (whom he revered), but he was already an accomplished artist when he started working for him and developed an independent style. His energetic, rippling surfaces owe much to Rodin, but his flat rhythmic simplifications of form, recalling
Romanesque
art, are more personal. He was particularly interested in the relationship of sculpture to architecture, and his reliefs for the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (1912) are among his finest works. Bourdelle had many other prestigious public commissions and also achieved great distinction as a teacher. From about 1910 he was generally regarded as the outstanding sculptor in France apart from Rodin himself. He was also a talented painter and draughtsman. His house and studio in Paris have been convented into the Musée Bourdelle; the first part opened in 1961 to mark the centenary of his birth.

 
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(
c.
1457–1521).
French painter, the most important pupil of
Fouquet
. He was active in Tours, where he worked for several royal patrons, including Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Anne of Brittany, who married each of them in turn. For this queen consort Bourdichon produced his most celebrated work—the
Hours of Anne of Brittany
(completed 1508), now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (see
BOOK OF HOURS
). It contains numerous exquisite borders of plants and insects, together with fifty-one large scenes—mainly from the New Testament and lives of the saints, but also including a portrait of Anne at prayer. Some of the religious scenes show such strong Italianate influence that it seems almost certain Bourdichon had visited Italy. Bourdichon is recorded as having painted works on a larger scale, but apart from a
triptych
of
The Madonna and Child with Saints
in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, all his other known works are manuscript
illuminations
. He effectively ends the great French tradition in this art.

 
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(1616–71).
French painter. In 1634–7 he worked in Rome, where he developed a talent for imitating the work of other painters—
Claude
,
Dughet
, van
Laer
—sometimes probably with intent to deceive. He continued in this vein when he returned to France and his
œuvre
is still ill-defined. From 1652 to 1654 he was court painter to Queen Christina of Sweden, of whom he did two portraits (Prado, Madrid, and Nationalmuseum, Stockholm), and after his return to France he worked mainly as a portraitist, developing a more personal style in which soft tonalities and skilful play with cascading draperies create a languorous, romantic effect (
Self-portrait
, Louvre, Paris).

 
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