François-Louis Français

François-Louis Français, usually known as Louis Français, was a French painter, lithographer and illustrator who became one of the most commercially successful landscape painters of the 19th century. A former pupil of Gigoux, he began his career by studying lithography and wood engraving, becoming a prolific illustrator and printmaker. His work as an illustrator is to be found in around forty books and numerous magazines from the late 1830s to the 1860s. Français also produced a large number of pen and ink drawings, enhanced by sepia, notable for their attention to detail and for their technical adroitness and conciseness.

Français is associated with the Barbizon School of painting, a movement to represent art in nature in a Romantic, Realist context. In 1836 whilst at Barbizon he met the landscape painter Camille Corot and began a ten-year association as a friend and acolyte. Français's paintings possess some of the prominent features of the work of Corot in his use of tonal colours, loose brushwork and an emphasis on softness of form.

Français exhibited first at the Paris Salon in 1837 and regularly thereafter until his death in 1897. He lived from 1846 to 1849 in Italy, where he experimented with a brighter palette.

His work developed neo-classical sentiments with mythical creatures appearing within a realist landscape. Whilst this bought him commercial success it alienated some critics who were harsh in their judgement of his work. A well respected and decorated artist within France, he was also internationally well known during his lifetime exhibiting abroad in Geneva and London but following his death in 1897, his reputation declined and there are relatively few of his paintings on show in public galleries beyond France.

In 1834 Français went to live at Barbizon and painted in the nearby Forest of Fontainbleu. He was part of the Barbizon school of artists dedicated to painting directly from nature, often en plein air, who settled in the area around the Auberge Ganne Inn. In a radical departure from formalism in art, nature itself became the subject of the painting. as many artists met at the Inn to discuss ideas and to set forth to paint in the Forest. Français met and befriended fellow artist Louis Cabat and in 1836 he became acquainted with Camille Corot, eighteen years older than Français and with whom he formed a strong personal bond of friendship and as a personal adviser, who was willing to offer technical advice and to introduce Français to some influential people. Under Corot's influence Français developed a style of landscape painting using tonal colours to express light that are reminiscent of Corot. Français was never able to capture Corot's delicacy at depicting the human form but he developed exponentially

into a fine landscape painter, albeit one that maintained an element of formalism. This formality was not surprising from a student of Gigoux but Français is known to have studied and admired the work of the early baroque painter Claude Lorrain's work at The Louvre. The occasional use of neo-classical subjects and the placing of mythological figures within the landscape that Français sometimes adopted bear a resemblance to the oeuvre of Lorrain.

In 1837 Français exhibited at the Salon for the first time, presenting Sous les saules (Under the Willows) (1837: Tours museum), a painting where the figures are by Henri Baron. The exhibition catalogue listed 2,130 entries but Français' painting was noticed and commented upon favourably.

In the mid-1840s, Français travelled regularly with Baron and their friend Nanteuil, to Bougival, a village on the Seine increasingly famous for its scenery and light changes. The paintings from this period, several of which were transposed to lithographs, are often signed Français, Elèves de Bougival (Student of Bougival). Soleil couchant (1845, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon), an autumnal landscape of the river at Bougival, was presented at the 1845 Salon of Charles Baudelaire, one of three that the poet organised. Baudelaire praised the canvas, as an example, of how to capture the poetic realism of nature.

In 1846 Français travelled to Italy for the first time staying in various locations: Rome (1846/9), Genoa (1846), Pisa (1846), Florence (1846/7), Frascati (1847), Ariccia (1848) and Tivoli (1848/49). This extended sojourn enabled Français to develop his style. His palette became more luminous and he began to paint in the closely set strokes that would be a feature of his later work. He acquired a passion for painting the light and would return to Italy throughout his career. He accumulated numerous drawings, sketches and watercolours often in gouache which enabled him to execute some of his best known canvases from the period that included Fontaine à Ariccia (Fountain at Ariccia) (1848, Paris Mus d 'Orsay). Returning to France he travelled and painted extensively throughout France in the 1850s. He regularly visited Plombières and the Loire valley, where he favoured realistic forest landscapes and riverbanks scenes.

Français was often in the company of other artists during these visits and with Corot, Courbet, Jongkind and the locally born Boudin, he was part of école de Honfleur (Honfleur school) that was drawn to paint the light and landscapes around Honfleur in Normandy. The images created during this interlude, by Français and his fellow artists, later inspired Jongkind and Claude Monet to open the Impressionist School of St. Simeon at Honfleur in 1862. Les Hêtres de la côte de Grâce près de Honfleur (1859) is a fine example of his work in Normandy in the 1850s. It features a weathered tree distorted by the coastal winds that buffet the coast. As always with Français there is precision in the detail. Much of the painting features a forbidding sky that pays debt to Français' knowledge of Constable.

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023