François-André Vincent and Arria and Poetus

'Arria and Poetus' by François-André Vincent

François-André Vincent, born on 30 December 1746

I will continue to post a painting a day for the month of December but I won't have time to write. I may add text at a later date. I hope you will still visit to see the daily painting.

Sophie Fremiet and Portrait of a Young Woman

Sophie Fremiet, born on 16 June 1797 and died on 4 December 1867

Frédéric Bazille and The Pink Dress

Frédéric Bazille, born on 6 December 1841 and died on 28 November 1870

During the NaNoWriMo Project, I will continue to post a painting a day for the month of November but I won't have time to write. I may add text at a later date. I hope you will still visit to see the daily painting. 

Maurice Denis and The Muses

Maurice Denis, born on 25 November 1870

Due to the NaNoWriMo Project, I will continue to post a painting a day for the month of November but I won't have time to write. I may add text at a later date. I hope you will still visit to see the daily painting.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and At the Moulin Rouge, The Dance

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, born on 24 November 1864

Due to the NaNoWriMo Project, I will continue to post a painting a day for the month of November but I won't have time to write. I may add text at a later date. I hope you will still visit to see the daily painting. 

Jean-Baptiste Santerre and A Young Girl Reading by Candlelight

Jean-Baptiste Santerre, born on 23 March 1658 and died on 21 November 1717

Due to the NaNoWriMo Project, I will continue to post a painting a day for the month of November but I won't have time to write. I may add text at a later date. I hope you will still visit to see the daily painting. 

Pierre Mignard and The Virgin of the Grapes

Pierre Mignard, born on 17 November 1612

Due to the NaNoWriMo Project, I will continue to post a painting a day for the month of November but I won't have time to write. I may add text at a later date. I hope you will still visit to see the daily painting. 

Claude Monet and Portrait of Madame Gaudibert

Claude Monet, born on 14 November 1840

Due to the NaNoWriMo Project, I will continue to post a painting a day for the month of November but I won't have time to write. I may add text at a later date. I hope you will still visit to see the daily painting. 

Camille Pissarro and Young Woman Bathing Her Feet

Camille Pissarro, born on 10 July 1830 and died on 13 November 1903

Due to the NaNoWriMo Project, I will continue to post a painting a day for the month of November but I won't have time to write. I may add text at a later date. I hope you will still visit to see the daily painting. 

Paul Signac and The Modistes

Paul Signac, born on 11 November 1863

Due to the NaNoWriMo Project, I will continue to post a painting a day for the month of November but I won't have time to write. I may add text at a later date. I hope you will still visit to see the daily painting. 

Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard and The Magician

Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard, born on 26 October 1780 and died on 10 November 1850

Due to the NaNoWriMo Project, I will continue to post a painting a day for the month of November but I won't have time to write. I may add text at a later date. I hope you will still visit to see the daily painting. 

Jean Puy and Young Woman Reading Along The Odet

Jean Puy, born on 8 November 1876

Due to the NaNoWriMo Project, I will continue to post a painting a day for the month of November but I won't have time to write. I may add text at a later date. I hope you will still visit to see the daily painting. 

Henri Matisse and The Lute

Henri Matisse, born on 31 December 1869 and died on 3 November 1954

Due to the NaNoWriMo Project, I will continue to post a painting a day for the month of November but I won't have time to write. I may add text at a later date. I hope you will still visit to see the daily painting. 

Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin and The Canary

Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin, born on 2 November 1699 

Due to the NaNoWriMo Project, I will continue to post a painting a day for the month of November but I won't have time to write. I may add text at a later date. I hope you will still visit to see the daily painting. 

Gaston La Touche and Pardon in Brittany

'Pardon in Brittany' (1896) by Gaston La Touche; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

The reason why today's painting by French painter Gaston La Touche, born on 29 October 1854, caught my eye while browsing the net, will be clear just by looking at the image. The light of the glowing candles is beautiful and I immediately wanted to know what scene is being depicted in this painting. I will come to that in a minute. La Touche was a Post-Impressionist painter whose first paintings were of working-class Parisians, done in a depressing style. He made the acquaintance of Edgar Degas and Édouard Manet and wished to study art with the latter. Manet refused him as a student and said there was nothing he could teach him. La Touche just needed to use a variety of colours and paint what he saw. Another friend of his, Félix Bracquemond, advised him to paint in the style of Watteau and Fragonard, who were known for their dreamy subjects, soft pastels and light themes. La Touche took the advice and burned almost all of his old paintings. He sought out scenes of beauty to suit the lighter mood of his new paintings and ended up in Brittany, on the northwest coast of France. Here, on the feast days of patron saints, were processions of pilgrims in traditional dress. The pilgrimages were called Pardons and the pilgrims would seek forgiveness. Together they walked in prayer and a priest granted them absolution. Which brings us to today's painting. We see a man leading a horse with a woman and child. It's almost as if the horse is suspended in space amongst a carpet of white lace bonnets. In front of the horse, the priest receives the penitents holding their candles. Although the scene is crowded, there is a quiet peacefulness to it. I think it's nice to know the story of a narrative painting. It sometimes makes you look at a painting differently. But with this painting, I think the main character is still the beautiful light of the glowing candles. The artist's English Wikipedia doesn't give much information, so I used this article.

Frederick Childe Hassam and The Sonata

'The Sonata' (1893) by Frederick Childe Hassam; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City

Today's artist is Frederick Childe Hassam, born on 17 October 1859, a painter whose name I vaguely recognise but I never really knew his paintings. Hissam was a leading and influential American Impressionist painter who was very productive with over 3,000 artworks over the course of his career. He was initially trained as an apprentice to a wood-engraver and went to art school in Boston and Paris. He spent five years in France where he was influenced by Claude Monet. In 1898, he became one of the founders of The Ten, a group of ten American painters who were considered exponents of Impressionism and who rebelled against the conservative Academy. He painted city life as well as life in the countryside, with great use of colour and light. His most famous paintings are the so-called 'Flag' series, paintings of urban celebrations at the end of World War I. His credo, which he stated in 1892, was: "The man who will go down to posterity is the man who paints his own time and the scenes of everyday life around him." For today I chose a lovely depiction of a woman behind the piano. I just found an article on a blog about the artwork. Apparently it was an important painting to the artist himself. We see a woman who is exhausted after having played Beethoven's difficult and lenghty Sonata Appassionata. This painting was probably the model for his many other interior paintings depicting women. Hassam was very attached to it and after already having sold practically all of his collection, he couldn't let go of The Sonata until 26 years after he painted it.

James Tissot and Kathleen Newton In An Armchair

'Kathleen Newton In An Armchair' (1878) by James Tissot; Private Collection

I had already decided on doing today's post on French painter James Tissot, born on 15 October 1836, but to choose a painting was a bit difficult because there are many that I like. Eventually I chose this portrait of Kathleen Newton because while reading Tissot's biography online, the thing that drew my attention was the relationship between him and Kathleen Newton. She was his mistress and muse and is the subject in many of his paintings. When she moved into his London home, Tissot withdrew from social life and lived quietly at home with the love of his life. She died at the age of 28 from an overdosis of laudanum. Tissot was overcome by grief and didn't leave her coffin for four days. He never recovered from her tragic death and moved back to Paris (his house in London was sold to Alma-Tadema). He never got romantically involved with a woman again and dedicated the rest of his life to painting religious scenes. If you are interested in reading about Tissot's artistic life, click on his name above.

Jean-Antoine Watteau and Gersaint's Shop Sign

'Gersaint's Shop Sign' (1720) by Jean-Antoine Watteau; Staatliche Museen, Berlin

I'm not really a big fan of French Rococo painter Jean-Antoine Watteau, born on 10 October 1684. He represents the fête galante style, a French term used for (usually small scale) paintings that show groups of elegantly dressed men and women, depicted in a park or garden setting, most of the time engaged in amorous play. It's not so much the frivolity of these paintings or the subject matter that I don't like, but it has more to do with the ornate Rococo style. Watteau studied with a local painter and after his death, he studied with another painter who specialised in decorating theaters. During his 15-year career, Watteau showed his skill in a variety of genres, subjects and techniques. His best known subjects are drawn from the Italian Commedia dell'arte. The painting I have chosen for today, I do like. I have posted the full painting but if you want to see it more closely in detail, then click here and click again to enlarge it. The painting is his last masterpiece, painted on two canvasses, and is a depiction of an art gallery with clients and shop staff. It was actually painted as a shop sign for the art dealer Edme-François Gersaint but never was used as an external sign. It only spent fifteen days at the shop. For further reading on the painting, click here.

Pierre Bonnard and The Red Garters

'The Red Garters' (c.1905) by Pierre Bonnard; Private Collection

There are many other paintings that I could have chosen by French artist Pierre Bonnard, born on 3 October 1867, because I like his paintings and his use of colour. He studied both law and art but decided to pursue a career in painting. He met Édouard Vuillard (who became his lifelong friend) and Maurice Denis and formed the group Les Nabis with them, a group of Post-Impressionist avant-garde artists who became influential in the field of graphic art. Bonnard's wife Maria Boursin, known as Marthe de Méligny and with whom he had lived thirty years before marrying her in 1925, was a working-class laundry girl and his model in many of his paintings. I guess she must be the model for the numerous paintings that I love of a nude woman standing in front of a mirror (here) or taking a siesta (here) or bathing (here). In fact, I just read in this very nice Dutch article online that Marthe appears in 384 of his paintings so I can be sure that she is the one in the three paintings that I've given you the link to. Ánd the model for today's painting as well. I love this depiction of a woman in garters and the beautiful colours, but like I said, I like many of his paintings and also his still lifes. To select a few, click here, or here, or here. 

Frédéric Soulacroix and The Cavalier's Kiss

'The Cavalier's Kiss' (no date found) by Frédéric Soulacroix; Private Collection

I was a little bit confused today. I had already chosen this painting by French painter Frédéric Soulacroix, born on 1 October 1858 in Rome (click on the French Wikipedia page for full details and more information, or the Dutch page), but when I tried to find the location and date of the painting, I found conflicting ownership. Some sites say that the painting was by the hand of Frédéric but there were more sources who mention that his father Charles Soulacroix, a well-known painter, was the artist. So I chose a painting right off Frédéric's English Wikipedia page to be sure of ownership (also see this site). I just read on the Dutch Wikipedia page that Frédéric's work has often been mistaken for his father's, and vice versa, on the internet. But Frédéric always signed his work with a F and his father Charles his work with a C. Anyway, Frédéric lived and worked in Italy, and had studied in Florence. He is best known for his women portraits and scenes from daily life in rich interiors, painted in the Academic style. I can't find the F in this romantic painting of a cavalier who is kissing the hand of a beautiful lady.