Date : 1863
Material : Oil on canvas
Acquisition : Matsukata Collection
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European Painting
Painting (Still Life)
Area related
France
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Although largely self taught, Francois Saint Bonvin received some training first as a printer and later at the Gobelins and the Academie Suisse. He also had some contact with Francoise Marius Granet, whom Bonvin considered his master.
His earliest painting was of a still life, a subject for which he would be recognized by contemporary critics and collectors as a leader in reviving and developing the genre. Because of his acquaintance with Gustave Courbet and the novelist and art critic Champfleury, Bonvin became committed to the Realist movement early on in his career. He often took part in lengthy discussions with Courbet and others at the Brasserie Andler where Courbet set forth his theories on the development of Realism. Bonvin continued his participation in the group until the 1860s when he terminated his friendship with Courbet.
Because he avoided Courbet's violent stylistic modifications, Bonvin received official support throughout the Second Empire for the continued production of genre scenes, still lifes, portraits and occasionally a landscape. Commissions and purchases established him as an important figure in the Realist movement. In fact, in 1859 he held a studio exhibition of the works of young artists who had been rejected by the Salon, including Alphonse Legros, Henri Fantin Latour, James McNeill Whistler and Theodule Ribot.
Bonvin was greatly influenced by the Dutch masters of the seventeenth century, and made several trips to the Low Countries and London before returning to France where he settled in Saint Germain en Laye. In his depiction of light and local color he was a precursor to the Impressionists. From 1844 1846 Bonvin exhibited his drawings and watercolors at the Institute de France and in 1847 he was accepted at his first Paris Salon. He won a third class medal in 1849 and a second class medal in 1851. Bonvin continued to exhibit there until 1880. In 1870, he was awarded the Legion of Honor but by the 1880s there was little interest in his work, except from the most ardent supporters of the traditional Realist aesthetic. In 1887, with his financial and physical condition greatly deteriorated, his friends organized a charity exhibition and sale to ease his financial burdens. Several months later, Bonvin died in Saint Germ(ain en Laye.
(cf www.fineoldart.com)
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Still life
"Still life" is a work of art depicting inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural (flowers, game, sea shells and the like) or man-made (drinking glasses, foodstuffs, pipes, books and so on).
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