BÉRAUD, Jean - b. 1849 St. Petersburg, d. 1935 Paris - WGA

BÉRAUD, Jean

(b. 1849 St. Petersburg, d. 1935 Paris)

French painter, born in St. Petersburg of French parents. His father (also called Jean) was a sculptor and was likely working on the site of St. Isaac’s Cathedral at the time of his son’s birth. Until the occupation of Paris during the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. he studied law in Paris. He then studied art at Léon Bonnat’s studio for two years. He exhibited for the first time at the Salon in 1873.

He was friendly with Manet and he loosely followed the Impressionist style from roughly 1875 to 1900. He looked up to both Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas. He focused on facets of daily life along the Parisian boulevards, imagery that found a wide audience at the time. His paintings did not rely simply on the fashionable bourgeois, but also depicted everyday mundane activities; children leaving school, a man leaving his apartment, men and women struggling against the wind - every contemporary theme was now available to him. To capture the essence of this activity, Béraud established his studio in a cab, therefore allowing him to watch unsuspecting passers-by, while also maintaining a regular stationary studio in Montmartre.

In the 1890s he turned to religious themes in a more realistic style which led to controversial discussions at the Salon because of his practice of depicting biblical scenes in contemporary dress.

He was awarded a gold medal at the 1889 Paris International Exhibition. His greatest achievement was his award of the prestigious Légion d’honneur in 1894. Béraud’s focus towards the end of his career moved away from his own art and towards participation in the numerous exhibition committees he belonged to, including the Salon de la Société Nationale.

Carriages on the Champs-Élysées

The painting, signed lower left, shows Paris’s greatest promenade, a subject B�raud chose for a series in his oeuvre; this is the only occasion, however, when the artist shows the right side of the Champs-�lys�es looking towards the Arc de Triomphe.

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On the Boulevard

Working during La Belle �poque, Jean B�raud was a skilled documenter of Parisian daily life, which by then had become a spectacle of display. While his Impressionist contemporaries were moving out into the country to study the changing effects of the landscape during the late nineteenth century, B�raud remained rooted in Paris, studying the city life and its people.

After Baron Haussmann’s reorganization and expansion of the Parisian boulevards during the mid-century, which created the Paris recognizable today, the great expanses of space constructed encouraged people to mill about the city, bringing every member of society out from inside their homes. The life of Paris was now found along the boulevards. No longer were residents traveling in a labyrinthine maze of small, medieval streets. Now fashionably dressed men and women spent their afternoons walking through the park, or strolled along the fashionable boulevards where they could now window shop and indulge their senses. Cafes became major gathering places for both the upper echelon of society and the modern artists seeking refuge from this display of pomp. B�raud had ample subject matter since Paris had become a world of “flaneurs,” or an idle stroller, and the leisurely activity of aimless wandering became a hobby for the most cultured of individuals. He began to document these, and many other images, during his prolific career.

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