Georges Rochegrosse

Georges Antoine Rochegrosse (; 2 August 1859 – 7 November 1938) was a French historical and decorative painter.

Life and career

He was born in Versailles and studied in Paris with Jules Joseph Lefebvre and Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger.Waller, S. (ed.), ''Foreign Artists and Communities in Modern Paris, 1870–1914: Strangers in Paradise,'' Routledge, 2017, p. 119. His themes are generally historical, and he treated them on a colossal scale and in an emotional naturalistic style, with a distinct revelling in horrible subjects and details.

He made his Paris Salon début in 1882 with ''Vitellis traîné dans les rues de Rome par la populace (Vitellius dragged through the streets of Rome by the people)'' (1882; Sens). He followed this the year afterwards with ''Andromaque'' (1882–83; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen), which won that year's prestigious Prix du Salon. There followed ''La Jacquerie'' (1885; Untraced), ''Le mort de Babylone (The fall of Babylon)'' (1891; Untraced), ''The death of the Emperor Geta'' (1899; Musée de Picardie, Amiens), and ''Barbarian ambassadors at the Court of Justinian'' (1907; Untraced), all of which exemplify his strong and spirited but sensational and often brutal painting. In quite another style and beautiful in colour is his '' Le Chevalier aux Fleurs (The Knight of Flowers)'' (1894; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; RF 898).

He was elected an Officer of the Legion of Honour in 1892 and received the Medal of Honour in 1906 for ''The Red Delight''. Rochegrosse also illustrated several books. Some of the drawings for these illustrations are in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, London. He lived his final years in Algeria, but returned to Paris where he died and is buried in Montparnasse Cemetery. His wife, Marie Rochegrosse (née Leblond), had died in 1920.

Selected works

Paintings

File:Le Chevalier aux Fleurs 2560x1600.png, The Knight of the Flowers
File:Marie Rochegrosse dans la Salle à Manger by Georges Rochegrosse.jpg, Marie Rochegrosse in the Dining Room
File:Georges Antoine Rochegrosse - Sarah Bernhardt.jpg, Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt
in Costume
File:Rochegrosse Vitellius traîné dans les rues de Rome par la populace, 1883.jpg, Vitellius
Dragged Through the Streets of Rome by the Populace

Posters

File:Poster Louise Opera By Charpentier.jpg, Poster for Gustave Charpentier's '' Louise'' (1900)
File:Georges Rochegrosse - Poster for the prèmiere of Claude Debussy and Maurice Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Mélisande.jpg, Phototype reproduction of Rochegrosse's art used in the poster for the première of Claude Debussy and Maurice Maeterlinck's '' Pelléas et Mélisande'' (1902)
File:Georges Rochegrosse's poster for Jules Massenet's Don Quichotte.jpg, Poster for
''Don Quichotte'' (1910)
by Jules Massenet
File:Georges Rochegrosse - Poster for Gabriel Fauré's Pénélope (1913).jpg, Poster for the Paris première of ''Pénélope'' (1913)

Sources

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References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rochegrosse, Georges
1859 births
1938 deaths
19th-century French painters
French male painters
20th-century French painters
20th-century French male artists
Academic art
Officiers of the Légion d'honneur
Orientalist painters
19th-century painters of historical subjects
Académie Julian alumni
19th-century French male artists