Théodule-Augustin Ribot (August 8, 1823September 11, 1891) was a French realist painter and printmaker.
He was born in
Saint-Nicolas-d'Attez
Saint-Nicolas-d'Attez is a former commune in the Eure department in Normandy in northern France. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Sainte-Marie-d'Attez.Algeria around 1848, he returned in 1851 to Paris, where he continued to make his living as an artisan. In the late 1850s, working at night by lamplight, he began to paint seriously, depicting everyday subjects in a realistic style.
Ribot worked in at least three mediums, oil paint, pencil or crayon draughtsmanship and etching. Some drawings were complete works, others fragmentary but powerful preparations for painted canvases. The etchings, of which there are only about a couple of dozen, are of the middle period of his practice; they show a diversity of method as well as of theme.
He made his
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 ...
debut in 1861 with four paintings of kitchen subjects.Weisberg, Oxford Art Online Collectors purchased the works, and his paintings in the Salons of 1864 and 1865 were awarded medals.
Ribot painted domestic genre works,
still-life
A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, boo ...
s, portraits, as well as religious scenes, such as his Salon success ''St. Sebastian, Martyr'' (1865). The earlier work was drier and austere but still with an intensity of conception and presentation; later works were freer and broader. His preference was for painting directly from nature, emphasizing the contrasts of light and dark. His use of chiaroscuro to suggest psychological states grew from his admiration for Spanish and Dutch
baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...
, an enthusiasm shared by his contemporaries Courbet and Bonvin. Members of Ribot's family are the likely models for many of his figure compositions, in which the subjects engage in humble activities, such as preparing meals or gathering in groups to read to each other. The light draws attention to faces and hands, which emerge sharply from dimly lit surroundings.
Although the realism of Ribot's work aligns him with the most progressive artists of the generation preceding the Impressionists, he was no revolutionary, and his work met with a generally favorable response from the public and from critics.
In 1878 Ribot received the '' Légion d'honneur''. At about this time, in ill health, he stopped painting and moved to
Colombes
Colombes () is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. In 2019, Colombes was the 53rd largest city in France.
Name
The name Colombes comes from Latin ''columna'' (Old French ''colombe'') ...
, where he died in 1891.
His son, Germain Théodore Ribot (1845–1893), was a painter of still-lifes and genre in a style similar to that of his father.''Still Life with Dead Birds and a Basket of Oysters''. The Cleveland Museum of Art Retrieved July 4, 2019.
'Still Life with Apples and a Pomegranate' by Théodule-Augustin Ribot.JPG, ''Still Life with Apples and a Pomegranate, circa 1865
Ribot Theodule A Girl Arranging A Vase Of Flowers-1.jpg, ''A Girl Arranging a Vase of Flowers''
Ribot Theodule The Cook And The Cat-1.jpg, ''The Cook and the Cat''
(Toulouse) Le Bon Samaritain (1870) Théodule Ribot - Musée des beaux-arts de Pau Joconde00980001224.jpg, ''The Good Samaritan'', 1870
Notes
References
*Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), Charles Sterling, and Margaretta M. Salinger (1967). ''French Paintings: a Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. III : XIX-XX Centuries III''. New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
*Rosenblum, Robert (1989). ''Paintings in the Musée d'Orsay''. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang.
*Turner, J. (2000). ''From Monet to Cézanne: late 19th-century French artists''. Grove Art. New York: St Martin's Press.
*Weisberg, Gabriel P., "Théodule Ribot", Oxford Art Online