Léo-Paul Samuel Robert (19 March 1851 - 10 September 1923), also known as Paul Robert, was a Swiss painter, known for his depictions of birds and other wildlife.

Early life

Paul Robert was born in

Biel/Bienne Biel/Bienne (official bilingual wording; , ) is a List of towns in Switzerland, town and a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Biel/Bienne (administrative district), Biel/Bienne administrative district in the canton of Bern in Swi ...

, Switzerland, on 19 March 1851, to , who, like his brother

Louis Léopold Robert Louis Léopold Robert (13 May 1794 – 20 March 1835) was a Swiss painter. Biography He was born at La Chaux-de-Fonds (Neuchâtel) in Switzerland, but left his native place with the engraver Jean Girardet at the age of sixteen for Paris. He was ...

was a painter. Paul trained under his father, and then, in 1869, at the Munich Academy of Arts. After the death of his father in December 1871, he visited Verona, Venice, Ravenna, Bologna and Florence.

Career

After initially painting

allegories As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...

, Robert turned his talents next to

landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of Terrestrial ecoregion, land, its landforms, and how they integrate with Nature, natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionar ...

, and eventually to

watercolour Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

s of birds and

caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Sym ...

s. His painting won a gold medal when exhibited at the

Paris Salon The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art ...

in 1877. From 1886 to 1894, he was responsible for the decoration of the staircase at the (now the ), comprising three monumental murals; still extant. He illustrated an edition of

Jeremias Gotthelf Albert Bitzius (4 October 179722 October 1854) was a Swiss novelist; best known by his pen name of Jeremias Gotthelf. Biography Bitzius was born at Murten, where his father was pastor. The Bitzius family had once belonged to the Bernese patrici ...

's 1842 book ''

The Black Spider ''The Black Spider'' is a novella by the Swiss writer Jeremias Gotthelf written in 1842. Set in an idyllic frame story, old legends are worked into a Christian-humanist allegory about ideas of good and evil. Though the novel is initially divide ...

''. From 1891 to 1897 he was a member of the Swiss Federal Commission of Fine Arts and from 1894 to 1918 of the Commission of the

Gottfried Keller Foundation Gottfried Keller-Stiftung (Gottfried Keller Foundation, french: la fondation Gottfried-Keller), commonly abbreviated to GKS, is an arts foundation focused on cultural heritage of Switzerland. It was named by its founder Lydia Welti-Escher (1858– ...

. In 1900 he made a mosaic mural in glass, "The Age of History", also extant, and featuring the figures of Poetry and History, for the facade of the

Bern Historical Museum french: Musée d’Histoire de Berne , image = Historic museum Bern1.jpg , image_upright = , alt = , caption = The Museum entrance on Helvetiaplatz , map_type = Switzerland Bern dow ...

. Robert was also

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform va ...

as a minister in the protestant tradition. He died on 10 October 1923 in

Orvin Orvin is a municipality in the Jura bernois administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is located in the French-speaking Bernese Jura (''Jura Bernois''). Above it, there is a small year round resort, called les " Prés-d ...

, Switzerland.

Legacy

Three of Robert's sons , and were painters; Paul-André also painted nature subjects. Several of his works are in the at

Neuchâtel , neighboring_municipalities= Auvernier, Boudry, Chabrey (VD), Colombier, Cressier, Cudrefin (VD), Delley-Portalban (FR), Enges, Fenin-Vilars-Saules, Hauterive, Saint-Blaise, Savagnier , twintowns = Aarau (Switzerland), Besançon (France), ...

. The houses the 3,000 works of the "Foundation Robert", including hundreds by Paul, and others by the rest of his family. The street Coordinates for : in Biel/Bienne is named in his honour.

Gallery

File:The Echo – Leo-Paul-Samuel Robert.jpg, alt=, The Echo in the

Kunstmuseum Bern The Museum of Fine Arts Bern (German: ''Kunstmuseum Bern''), established in 1879 in Bern, is the museum of fine arts of the de facto capital of Switzerland. Its holdings run from the Middle Ages to the present. It houses works by Paul Klee, Pab ...

File:Paul Robert - Braunkehlchen.jpg, alt=, Robert's painting of a

Whinchat The whinchat (''Saxicola rubetra'') is a small migratory passerine bird breeding in Europe and western Asia and wintering in central Africa. At one time considered to be in the thrush family, Turdidae, it is now placed in the Old World flycat ...

(''Saxicola rubetra''; circa 1870) File:Berna, museo di storia 04 (cropped).JPG, alt=, Glass mural at

Works illustrated

References

External links

Artists Inspired by Nature – Leo Paul Robert
{{DEFAULTSORT:Robert, Léo-Paul 1851 births 19th-century Swiss painters 19th-century male artists 20th-century Swiss painters People from Biel/Bienne Swiss Protestant ministers Muralists Academy of Fine Arts, Munich alumni 1923 deaths 20th-century Swiss male artists