Marie_Auguste_Emile_René_Ménard_-_Las_Driades

Émile-René Ménard (15 April 1862, in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

– 13 January 1930, in Paris) was a French

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

. From early childhood he was immersed in an artistic environment:

Corot CoRoT (French: ; English: Convection, Rotation and planetary Transits) was a space telescope mission which operated from 2006 to 2013. The mission's two objectives were to search for extrasolar planets with short orbital periods, particularly th ...

Millet Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most species generally referred to as millets belong to the tribe Paniceae, but some millets al ...

and the

Barbizon Barbizon () is a commune (town) in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France. It is located near the Fontainebleau Forest. Demographics The inhabitants are called ''Barbizonais''. Art history The Barbizon school of painters is name ...

painters frequented his family home, familiarizing him thus with both landscape and antique subjects.

Biography

Ménard studied at the

Académie Julian The Académie Julian () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number a ...

from 1880 after having been a student of Baudry,

Bouguereau William-Adolphe Bouguereau (; 30 November 1825 – 19 August 1905) was a French academic painter. In his realistic genre paintings, he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female ...

, and

Henri Lehmann Henri Lehmann (; 14 April 1814 – 30 March 1882) was a German-born French historical painter and portraitist. Life Born Heinrich Salem Lehmann in Kiel, in the Duchy of Holstein, he received his first art tuition from his father Leo Lehmann ( ...

. He participated in the Salon of the Secession in Munich, and the ''Salon de la Libre Esthétique'' in Brussels during 1897. Several personal exhibitions were also devoted to him at the Georges Small Gallery. In 1904, he was appointed professor at the

Académie de la Grande Chaumière The Académie de la Grande Chaumière is an art school in the Montparnasse district of Paris, France. History The school was founded in 1904 by the Catalan painter Claudio Castelucho on the rue de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, near the Acadé ...

, and in that year welcomed the rising young Russian painter

Boris Kustodiev Boris Mikhaylovich Kustodiev (russian: Бори́с Миха́йлович Кусто́диев; – 28 May 1927) was a Russian and Soviet painter and stage designer. Early life Boris Kustodiev was born in Astrakhan into the family of a profe ...

, age 26, in his art studio. In 1921, he exhibited in the Twelfth Salon along with Henri Martin and

Edmond Aman-Jean Edmond Aman-Jean (13 January 1858, Chevry-Cossigny – 25 January 1936, Paris) was a French symbolist painter, who co-founded the Salon des Tuileries in 1923. Life His father was the owner and operator of an industrial lime kiln. He had hi ...

. Galleries in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...

and Boston, Massachusetts exposed Ménard and his art to the United States. However, the numerous commissions that Ménard received from the French government crowned his career; for example, the cycle for the ''Hautes Etudes à la Sorbonne'', the ''Faculté de Droit'', and the fresco ''Atoms'' for the Chemistry institute, and finally the ''Caise des Dépôts'' in

Marseilles Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...

. Ménard's art allies a rigorous, clear classicism with a diffuse and dreamlike brushwork. In 1894, Victor Shoe described Ménard's work in ''l'Art et la Vie'' (Art and Life) as "visions of a pacified, bathed nature, of dawn and of twilight, where the soul seems to immerse itself in the innocence of daybreak, and breathe the divine anointment that comes with the dawn."Jean-David Jumeau-Lafond, ''Les Peintres de l'Âme: le Symbolisme Idealiste en France'', exhibition catalog, Musée d'Ixelles, Brussels, October 15 – December 1999, (Gent: Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon, and Antwerp: Pandora, c. 1999) File:René Ménard Les errants.jpg, ''The Wanderers'' File:Émile-René Ménard - De lente.JPG, ''Spring'' File:Vôie Appinne (Paisaje) - Émile-René Ménard.jpg, ''View of the Apennines'' File:Émile-René_Ménard_-_The_Three_Graces,_1923.jpg, ''The Three Graces'', 1923

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Menard, Emile-Rene 1861 births 1930 deaths Painters from Paris 19th-century French painters Académie Julian alumni French male painters 20th-century French painters 20th-century French male artists French Symbolist painters French portrait painters Mythological painters French landscape painters Animal painters Officiers of the Légion d'honneur Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery 19th-century French male artists