Émile-René Ménard (15 April 1862 – 13 January 1930) was a French

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

. 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 t ...

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 millets belong to the tribe Paniceae. Millets are important crops in the Semi-arid climate, ...

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 n ...

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

Biography

Ménard was born on 15 April 1862 in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. He studied at the

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

from 1880 after having been a student of Baudry, Bouguereau, 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 A ...

, and in that year welcomed the rising young Russian painter

Boris Kustodiev Boris Mikhaylovich Kustodiev (; – 28 May 1927) was a Russian and later Soviet painter and stage designer. Early life Boris Kustodiev was born in Astrakhan into the family of a professor of philosophy, history of literature, and logic at t ...

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

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

and

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

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

Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...

. Ménard's art allies a rigorous, clear classicism with a diffuse and dreamlike brushwork. In 1894, Victor Soulier in ''L'Art et la Vie'' described Ménard's work 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) He died on 13 January 1930 in Paris. René Ménard Les errants.jpg, ''The Wanderers'' Émile-René Ménard - De lente.JPG, ''Spring'' Vôie Appinne (Paisaje) - Émile-René Ménard.jpg, ''View of the Apennines'' Émile-René_Ménard_-_The_Three_Graces,_1923.jpg, ''The Three Graces'', 1923

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Menard, Emile-Rene 1862 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 French painters of animals Officers of the Legion of Honour Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery 19th-century French male artists