Henri Rouart - Terrace on the Banks of the Seine at Melun

Stanislas-Henri Rouart (2 October 1833,

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 ...

- 2 January 1912, Paris) was a French engineer, industrialist, art collector and painter.

Biography

His father was a wealthy manufacturer of military uniforms. He was a student at the

Lycée Louis-le-Grand The Lycée Louis-le-Grand (), also referred to simply as Louis-le-Grand or by its acronym LLG, is a public Lycée (French secondary school, also known as sixth form college) located on rue Saint-Jacques in central Paris. It was founded in the ...

, where he became a friend of

Edgar Degas Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is es ...

. Later, he attended the

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

and studied engineering, but also took art classes.. He was an artillery captain in the Franco-Prussian War, and rescued Degas during the Siege of Paris. He was involved in numerous engineering projects, including tubes for the

Paris pneumatic post The Paris pneumatic post was a pneumatic tube message-carrying service that operated in the French capital from 1866. It was established because of the popularity of the electric telegraph in the city which had led to the signal cables becoming o ...

, a prototype for making "artificial ice", and an engine with external fins for cooling. In his fifties, having participated in the occasional exhibition since 1868, he decided to devote himself entirely to painting. A former student of

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 ...

and

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 ...

, his works were largely

Impressionistic Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

in nature.

David Haziot David Haziot (born 1947 in Casablanca) is a French writer. Holder of a Master of Philosophy at the Sorbonne on the cinema of Sergei Eisenstein, he then turned to fiction, biography, and essay. He obtained a prize of the Académie Française for h ...

, ''Le Roman des Rouart'', Fayard, 2012, pp. 86-87 and 297-305 In addition to painting, he was an avid art collector and a patron of several artists, including

Berthe Morisot Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (; January 14, 1841 – March 2, 1895) was a French painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists. In 1864, Morisot exhibited for the first time in the highly es ...

Toulouse-Lautrec Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the la ...

, and

Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Re ...

, as well as his old friend, Degas. Three exhibitions of Impressionist works were held, thanks to his financial support. In 1891, he was elected

Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...

La Queue-en-Brie La Queue-en-Brie (, literally ''La Queue in Brie'') is a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. History On 7 July 1899, a part of the territory of La Queue-en-Brie was detached and merged w ...

, in

Val-de-Marne Val-de-Marne (, "Vale of the Marne") is a department of France located in the Île-de-France region. Named after the river Marne, it is situated in the Grand Paris metropolis to the southeast of the City of Paris. In 2019, Val-de-Marne had a pop ...

; a position he held until his death. After almost a year following his death, his daughter and four sons decided to sell his collection. The sale brought in a huge sum, and had the effect of increasing the value of Impressionist paintings in general. One of his sons,

Ernest Ernest is a given name derived from Germanic languages, Germanic word ''ernst'', meaning "serious". Notable people and fictional characters with the name include: People *Archduke Ernest of Austria (1553–1595), son of Maximilian II, Holy Roman ...

, also became a painter.

References

External links

Henri Rouart
@ the commune of La Queue-en-Brie website {{DEFAULTSORT:Rouart, Henri French Impressionist painters Businesspeople from Paris Painters from Paris 19th-century French painters French male painters 20th-century French painters 20th-century French male artists 1833 births 1912 deaths Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery Members of the Ligue de la patrie française 19th-century French male artists

Biography

References

Further reading

External links