PUVIS DE CHAVANNES, Pierre-Cécile

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Symbolist groups organized themselves as brotherhoods to recreate the monastic ideal that Fra Angelico represented. For Puvis de Chavannes, the hills and convent of Fiesole became the setting for Christian Inspiration, which portrayed Fra Angelico directing his workshop.

A larger version of this painting (Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore) was exhibited at the 1872 Salon.

Even though Puvis declared the “true role of painting is to animate walls. Apart from that, one should never create paintings larger than one’s hand”, his catalogue is not limited to decorative works. Adapting his principles of decoration, he produced a number of easel paintings, most of which were sold through the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. Among these works are the two versions of Hope.

In the wake of the catastrophic Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, the artist painted this picture of a young woman seated in a devastated landscape holding an oak twig as a symbol of hope for the nation’s recovery from war and deprivation. This painting was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1872. A smaller variant, showing the subject nude, is at the Mus�e d’Orsay, Paris.

Puvis de Chavannes was one of the most original artists of his generation. His utopian visions, in which the figures seem to float in a dream-like landscape, served as a point of departure for many younger artists, such as Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse.

Pursuing his vocation as a decorator, in 1861 Puvis exhibited two large murals (each measuring 3.40 x 5.55 m), Peace and War, for which he received the second-class medal in the history section. Peace was purchased by the State, and, in order not to separate the two canvases, Puvis donated War. Still without any commissions, he produced the complement to this group, Work and Repose, which he exhibited at the Salon of 1863. Arthur-Stanislas Diet, architect of the Mus�e Napol�on (now Mus�e de Picardie) at Amiens, subsequently approached Puvis to obtain the two series for the museum. The first group was loaned by the State, and the second was donated by Puvis.

The painting in Philadelphia is a reduced version of the large painting at Amiens.

Pursuing his vocation as a decorator, in 1861 Puvis exhibited two large murals (each measuring 3.40 x 5.55 m), Peace and War, for which he received the second-class medal in the history section. Peace was purchased by the State, and, in order not to separate the two canvases, Puvis donated War. Still without any commissions, he produced the complement to this group, Work and Repose, which he exhibited at the Salon of 1863. Arthur-Stanislas Diet, architect of the Mus�e Napol�on (now Mus�e de Picardie) at Amiens, subsequently approached Puvis to obtain the two series for the museum. The first group was loaned by the State, and the second was donated by Puvis.

The paintings in Philadelphia are reduced versions of the large canvases at Amiens.

The beheading of Saint John the Baptist is one of the staple subjects of Christian art. The story’s folk version, however, in which a femme fatale has the saint killed because of her desire for him, had from the sixteenth century informed erotic pictures depicting Salome carrying the Baptist’s severed head, often the artist’s self portrait. This theme was revived in 1841 by Heinrich Heine in his exotic poem Atta Troll, and quickly became fashionable in all the arts.

The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist exemplifies Puvis’s ideals and methods. While the picture is almost certainly unfinished, its lean paint surface is characteristic of the artist. During his travels he had fallen in love with ‘Italian Primitive’ frescoes, and it was their flat, matt surfaces that he tried to imitate.

Puvis de Chavannes’s composition is derived from church frescoes. Bodies - like the Moor’s muscular back - are distorted to appear parallel to the picture surface, or at right angles to it in strict profile. Perspective is suppressed, and space behind the fig tree is patterned by its branches into two-dimensional shapes.

The Poor Fisherman was the first of Puvis de Chavannes’ paintings to be bought by the State. But the work sparked a lively reaction at the Salon of 1881 and was not bought until 1887 when it was again shown to the public by the art dealer Durand-Ruel. So it took six years for a national museum to dare to show this radical painting that was so unrealistic in the light of the conventions of the time.

Without recourse to literal description, Puvis intended to give a view of desolation and resignation by painting a widower and his two children in a bleak landscape. The choice of the fisherman has obvious Biblical resonances. In 1881, the synthetic nature of the painting, its refusal of any modelling and traditional perspective, and its range of greenish hues, ranged most of the critics against the artist. However, artists of the younger generation were enthusiastic over the extreme, poignant bareness of this silent image. Puvis became the leading light of the new style of painting.

In The Poor Fisherman Puvis achieved a great force of expression with minimum means, creating a painting that is neither Realist nor Symbolist but independent of every age and every school.

Pursuing his vocation as a decorator, in 1861 Puvis exhibited two large murals (each measuring 3.40 x 5.55 m), Peace and War, for which he received the second-class medal in the history section. Peace was purchased by the State, and, in order not to separate the two canvases, Puvis donated War. Still without any commissions, he produced the complement to this group, Work and Repose, which he exhibited at the Salon of 1863. Arthur-Stanislas Diet, architect of the Mus�e Napol�on (now Mus�e de Picardie) at Amiens, subsequently approached Puvis to obtain the two series for the museum. The first group was loaned by the State, and the second was donated by Puvis.

After Neoclassical beginnings, Puvis gradually perfected a style that suited mural painting and that he also used in easel paintings with a decorative intention, such as the present painting. The style was characterised by an absence of perspective and chiaroscuro, and the use of areas of light colour. He achieved grandeur and depth of emotion through the austere simplification of figures that are somehow outside time and place.