Charles Cottet (12 July 1863 – 20 September 1925) was a French painter, born at Le Puy-en-Velay and died in Paris. A famed

post-impressionist Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...

, Cottet is known for his dark, evocative painting of rural Brittany and

seascapes ''Seascapes'' is a weekly 30-minute Irish radio programme covering maritime matters broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 on Fridays at 22:30 and formerly presented by the award-winning presenter Tom MacSweeney. The programme deals with all subjects of ma ...

. He led a school of painters known as the

Bande noire ''La bande noire'' ("The black band") was the name given to some speculative, asset-stripping organizations in the 1790s that bought ancient castles and abbeys at knockdown prices in the wake of the French Revolution, only to demolish them and se ...

or "Nubians" group (for the sombre palette they used, in contrast to the brighter Impressionist and Postimpressionist paintings), and was friends with such artists as

Auguste Rodin François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...

Biography

Cottet studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, and under Puvis de Chavannes and Roll, while also attending 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 ...

(where fellow students formed ''

Les Nabis Les Nabis (French: les nabis, ) were a group of young French artists active in Paris from 1888 until 1900, who played a large part in the transition from impressionism and academic art to abstract art, symbolism and the other early movements of m ...

'' school of painting, with which he was later associated). He travelled and painted in Egypt, Italy, and on Lake Geneva, but he made his name with his sombre and gloomy, firmly designed, severe and impressive scenes of life on the Brittany coast. Cottet exhibited at the Salon of 1889, but on a trip to Brittany in 1886 he had found his true calling. For the next twenty years he painted scenes of rural and harbor life, portraying a culture Parisians still found exotic. He is especially noted for his dark seascapes of Breton harbors at dawn, and evocative scenes from the lives of Breton fishermen. He was close friends with Charles Maurin, and his group included the painter Félix-Émile-Jean Vallotton. Cottet has often been associated with the picturesque seaside symbolism of the Pont-Aven School, though Vallotton famously painted Cottet as a leader of

, beside

Pierre Bonnard Pierre Bonnard (; 3 October 186723 January 1947) was a French painter, illustrator and printmaker, known especially for the stylized decorative qualities of his paintings and his bold use of color. A founding member of the Post-Impressionist ...

, Édouard Vuillard, and Ker-Xavier Roussel, in his ''Five Painters'' (1902–3; Kunstmuseum Winterthur). Cottet was more explicitly the leader of his own small movement, the

of the 1890s, which included Lucien Simon and André Dauchez, all influenced by the realism and dark colours of Courbet.

Selected works

Cottet's paintings can be found in many museums worldwide, including the

Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (russian: Музей изобразительных искусств имени А. С. Пушкина, abbreviated as ) is the largest museum of European art in Moscow, located in Volkhonka street, just oppo ...

in Moscow, the British Museum, the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

in Washington D.C., the

Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art ...

in Paris, the Hermitage, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the

Ohara Museum of Art The in Kurashiki was the first collection of Western art to be permanently exhibited in Japan. The museum opened in 1930 and originally consisted almost entirely of French paintings and sculptures of the 19th and 20th centuries. The collection h ...

, the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

, the National Museum of Western Art, the

Zimmerli Art Museum Zimmerli is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Patrick Zimmerli * Sandra Zimmerli (born 1965), Swiss ski mountaineer and radio journalist * Walther Zimmerli (1907–1983), Swiss academic theologian See also *Zimmerli Art Museum a ...

, the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Musée Rodin. * 1908–09 ''Au pays de la mer. Douleur'' also called ''Les victimes de la mer'', the Musée d'Orsay. * 1905, ''Petit village au pied de la falaise'', Musée Malraux, Le Havre * 1900–10, ''Montagne'', Musée Malraux, Le Havre * 1896 ''View of Venice from the Sea'', the Hermitage, St. Petersburg. * 1896 ''Seascape with Distant View of Venice'', the Hermitage, St. Petersburg.Art Hermitage
/ref> * 1896 ''Portrait de Cottet'', the Musée d'Orsay.

Notes

References

The Grove Dictionary of Art. Macmillan (2000)

External links

* . In ''

Harper's Magazine ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...

'', December 1910. Illustrations by Charles Cottet and Jacques-Emile Blanche
Biography at Humrich Fine Art

''Cottet et la Bretagne''

in Insecula.

on the site of Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper in Quimper, France. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cottet, Charles 1863 births 1925 deaths 19th-century French painters French male painters 20th-century French painters 20th-century French male artists Post-impressionist painters École des Beaux-Arts alumni Académie Julian alumni People from Le Puy-en-Velay 19th-century French male artists