Jules Louis Dupré (April 5, 1811 – October 6, 1889) was a French painter, one of the chief members of the
Barbizon school of landscape painters. If
Corot stands for the lyric and
Rousseau for the epic aspect of the poetry of nature, Dupré is the exponent of its tragic and dramatic aspects.
[Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.]
Biography
Dupré was born in
Nantes
Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...
. He exhibited first at the
Salon
Salon may refer to:
Common meanings
* Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments
* French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home
* Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment
Arts and entertainment
* Salon (P ...
in 1831, and three years later was awarded a second-class medal. In the same year he came to England, where he was impressed by the genius of
Constable
A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in criminal law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. A constable is commonly the rank of an officer within the police. Other peop ...
. From then on he learned how to express movement in nature; and the districts around
Southampton and
Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west.
Plymouth ...
, with their wide, unbroken expanses of water, sky and ground, gave him good opportunities for studying the tempestuous motion of storm-clouds and the movement of foliage driven by the wind. He was named an Officer of the French
Légion d'honneur in 1848.
His daughter
Therese-Marthe-Francoise also became a painter.
Dupré's colour is sonorous and resonant. He showed preference for using dramatic sunset effects and stormy skies and seas as the subjects of his paintings. Late in life he changed his style and gained appreciably in largeness of handling and arrived at greater simplicity in his colour harmonies. Among his chief works are the ''Morning and Evening'' at the
Louvre, and the early ''Crossing the Bridge'' in the
Wallace Collection.
Selected paintings
File:Jules Dupré - Le moulin à vent.jpg, ''The Windmill'' (1850s)
File:The Old Oak by Jules Dupré, c1870.jpg, ''The Old Oak'' (1870) 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 ...
.
File:Cows Crossing a Ford MET DP232030.jpg, '' Cows Crossing a Ford,'' an early work in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
File:Jules Dupré - Sur le chemin (1856).jpg, ''On the Road'' (1856)
References
External links
''Environs de Plymouth''- Rehs Galleries' biography on Jules Dupré and an image of his early painting ''Environs de Plymouth''.
*
''Degas: The Artist's Mind'' exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art fully available online as PDF, which contains material on Jules Dupré (see index)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dupre, Jules
1812 births
1889 deaths
19th-century French painters
French male painters
Landscape artists
Officiers of the Légion d'honneur
19th-century French male artists