"Louis Auguste Auguin (1824-1904) - Sunset Over The Sea"
Louis Auguste AUGUIN (1824-1904) - Sunset over the sea Louis Auguste AUGUIN (1824-1904). Sunset on the sea Oil on canvas, signed lower left. 19 x 24 cm. Landscape painter, Louis Augustin Auguin was, in Paris, the pupil of Jules Cogniet. It was there that he met Corot. Very influenced by Ruysdaël and Le Lorrain (whom he describes as `painters of light`), he perfected his technique by carrying out a real tour of France to study the most diverse landscapes. Later, he set up his workshop at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rochefort. But the great school of nature attracted him again and he closed his workshop around 1860, to work in several country residences and reproduce the most picturesque sites of the Charente, Saintonge, Poitou, Périgord, Limousin, of the Landes and the Pyrenees. Some time later, he settled in Port-Berteau, on the right bank of the Charente, near Saintes. This stay will be important for him: it is there that he meets Gustave Courbet; thanks to Etienne Baudry, provincial patron and Hippolyte Pradelle. All three settle in Port-Berteau and paint their landscape in the middle of nature. In 1863, the `Port-Berteau group` exhibited in Saintes: among the works presented, a landscape painted by Auguin and Courbet. His sense of nature forbids Auguin to paint all human life and the landscape becomes a true communion between the sky, the earth and the water. The treatment of the vegetation recalls the French school of the 18th century, while the play of light underlines the influence of the Dutch school. Nevertheless, the composition of its landscapes shows great originality in the rendering of bodies of water and the composition of distant ones. Auguin received several medals during his life: the Medal of Honor in La Rochelle in 1866, The Medal of 3rd class in 1880, the Medal of 2nd in 1884. In 1894, he also received the Legion of Honor.