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Le Vieillard (Pourtau)
''Le vieillard'' (''The old man'') is an 1894 painting by Léon Pourtau in the collection of the Museo Soumaya, Mexico City. This work represents an old man in a deserted French street, during a curfew of Prussian occupation. The man walks with crutches, probably with a physical wound. The scene is illuminated by the explosion of a bomb that produces an intense yellow colour that breaks the darkness of the night. This work was produced in the context of the defeat of the French Republic to the German Empire after the Franco-Prussian War. Pourtau was a student of Georges Seurat and this work shows influence of pointillism and divisionism Divisionism, also called chromoluminarism, was the characteristic style in Neo-Impressionist painting defined by the separation of colors into individual dots or patches which interacted optically..Homer, William I. ''Seurat and the Science of P .... The technique employed by Pourtau to achieve a contrast between the dark and the dist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Léon Pourtau
Léon Pourtau (1868 – 4 July 1898) was a French painter and musician. At the age of 15, an apprentice typesetter, Pourtau left Bordeaux for Paris. He worked in a small restaurant on the Rue Lafayette, where musicians gathered Orchestre Lamoureux. Thanks to them Pourtau got a job as a concert clarinetist in a Café-chantant. He toured with a circus band where he would help set up the tent and bathe the elephants. Back in Paris he entered the Conservatoire de Paris. During this period he married, had two children, and become a professor at the Conservatoire de Lyon at the age of 22 – the youngest ever. He met Georges Seurat, himself also a musician, who taught him the impressionist technique. He took the opportunity of a concert tour in the US, which, after two years, earned him 20,000 Francs. He also became principal clarinetist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1894 at the invitation of conductor Emil Paur. At the annual exhibition of fine art held in Philade ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |