Jean Seignemartin (lyon, 1848 - Algiers, 1960) - Landscape And Animals (1868)

A student of Guichard at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, he obtained the Laurier d'Or there. His career began in a workshop that he shared with Vernay, a fervent defender of his gifts as a colorist; Together they paint numerous landscapes in the Lyon countryside and still lifes. Assigned during the war of 1870 to the Company of Pontonniers in Paris, he contracted a chest infection from which he never recovered. He then took up his brushes again, painted landscapes on the banks of the Rhône in Écully, then in Voiron, portraits and flowers. Deciding to go to Algeria for treatment, he painted warm and colorful views there, marked above all by white effects and scenes of daily life; unfortunately he died there at the age of twenty-seven. Today, there remain some very beautiful portraits of the artist including that of his friend and patron Doctor R. Tripié and admirable bouquets of flowers in which he excels at rendering the jumble of corollas in enamel tones, their warmth and their tactile sensuality. Certain paste effects, kneaded with light, have the richness and brilliance of Delacroix for whom Seignemartin had a true cult. The Lyon museum has several of his works, notably those painted in Algiers.