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Marie Bracquemond
(1841-1916)
Bracquemond, Félix (1833-1914) and Marie (1841-1916).
A pupil of Guichard, who was a pupil of
Ingres,
Félix Bracquemond
made his early reputation as a lithographer and etcher,
the techniques of which he taught
Manet,
and in 1863 his engravings of Erasmus figured in the Salon des Refusés.
Although his paintings attracted considerable approval at the Salon,
his friendship with Manet and other
Impressionists
led him to participate in the Impressionist exhibitions of 1874, 1879
and 1880; but as a painter he was never really in sympathy with
their ideas or techniques. In 1871 he was appointed art director
of the Sèvres porcelain factory and shortly afterwards moved to the
same position at the Haviland factory in Limoges.
In 1886 he published
Du Dessin et de la couleur,
which was largely concerned with engraving. It was in this medium
that his real achievements lay, and the 200 or so plates that
he produced are among the most innovative of the century.
He greatly helped
Pissarro
with his experiments in the medium. In 1879 he planned with
Degas,
Pissaro and
Cassatt
the publication of a journal,
Le jour et la nuit, backed by
Caillebotte,
dedicated to graphic art; but nothing came of it, largely because
Degas lost interest.
The paintings of his wife Marie were both a good deal closer to the
general ideas of Impressionism and mode interesting than his,
a fact of which he seems to have been conscious; their son Pierre,
one of her staunchest supporters, noted that he was jealous of her
achievement, seldom showed her works to viewing artists and resented
any criticisms she might venture about his paintings.
She was something of a recluse, and many of her finest works
(e.g.
On the Terrace at Sèvres, 1880; Musée du Petit
Palais, Geneva) were painted in her own garden. She was a vocal
as well as an enthusiastic supporter of Impressionist doctrines
and she exhibited at the exhibitions of 1879, 1880 and 1886.
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