Jules Dupré Harfleur Oil On Paper Normandy 1876

Jules Dupré (1812-1889)

Harfleur

Oil on paper laid down on canvas, signature incised lower right Jules Dupré, dated October 7, 1876 and located in Harfleur in Normandy.

Good condition, a fold or old tear attenuated in the center.

Dimensions: 20.5 x 31 cm


Born in 1811 in Nantes, Jules Dupré is considered one of the best landscapers of the century (Bénézit, p. 77). His influences are multiple. He studied the Dutch masters and admired Rembrandt. During his stays in London, the painter was influenced by English landscapers, in particular the master of landscape, Constable, who would profoundly influence his work. Pleinairist attached to the Barbizon school, Jules Dupré took advantage of the invention of the paint tube in the early 1840s and the development of railway lines around Paris to put the lights of nature to the test of his brush. Jules Dupré is the founder of the modern French landscape school, one of the five creators of the Barbizon school with Rousseau, Millet, Daubigny, Corot. His meeting with Théodore Rousseau was decisive; he painted alongside him on the motif in the forest of Fontainebleau and learned to look at nature with sincerity and depth. He practices landscape painting characterized by light effects and an impasto of the pictorial material. During exhibitions at the Salons, his works are noticed. At the Salon of 1835, Eugène Delacroix congratulated him on the workmanship of his skies. Camille Corot nicknamed him the “Beethoven of landscape”. Through Van Gogh's correspondence with his brother, we can read the painter's deep admiration for his elder brother. J. Dupré, with a passionate and romantic temperament exalted by the landscape of nature, was also a precursor of impressionism. He experiences the outdoors; he paints the calm of nature in opposition to the hustle and bustle of the city in full industrial expansion.



Honfleur