Jules DuprÉ (1812 - 1889) French - Mare Au Crépuscule.

Oil on monogrammed canvas JD lower right

Dimensions: 39 x 31.5 cm, with frame: 60 x 53 cm

Born in 1811 in Nantes, Jules Dupré is regarded as one of the best landscapers of the century (Bénézit, p. 77 ).

Its influences are multiple. He studies the Dutch masters and admires Rembrandt. During stays in London, the painter is marked by English landscapers, in particular the master of the landscape, Constable who will deeply 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 with 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 by his side on the motif in the forest of Fontainebleau and learned to look at nature with sincerity and depth.
He practices a landscape painting characterized by light effects and an impasto of pictorial material. During exhibitions at the Salons, his works are noticed. At the Salon of 1835, Eugène Delacroix congratulated him on the bill for his skies.

Camille Corot nicknamed him the "Beethoven of the landscape". Through Van Gogh's correspondence to his brother, one can read the painter's deep admiration for his elder. J. Dupré, with a passionate and romantic temper 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 bustle of the city in full industrial expansion.


A sensitive painter, he represents here a morning scene, far from the mythological clichés of wild nature. The dark masses of trees stop our gaze. Like a frame within a frame, the trees invite you to follow the clear river from the first light of day towards the cottage in the center of the canvas, hidden by nature. The touch is lively, it is the sign of the gesture that precedes impressionism. Lighter, the bristles of the pasted brushes are enough to suggest the movement of the wind in the leaves.
Looking at this painting, one can understand the admiration that Van Gogh had for the artist. Perhaps he detected in his work a form of avant-garde expressionism. The treatment of nature and light, marked by an intense yellow impasto, in this strong work by Jules Dupré is revealing.

Bibliography:. Exhibition "The Barbizon School: painting outdoors before Impressionism", Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, 2002.. Emmanuel Bénézit, Dictionary of painters, sculptors, designers and engravers, t. II, Gründ Bookstore, reed. 1976.

Museums:. Louvre Museum, Musée d'Orsay, Paris. National Gallery of Canada, National Gallery of Art. Senlecq L'Isle Adam Museum, Reims Museum of Fine Arts, London, Saint Petersburg (L'Hermitage), New York (Metropolitan, Frick Collection), Washington, Memphis, Saint-Louis…