Jules Bastien-Lepage
Jules Bastien-Lepage (1 November 1848 – 10 December 1884) was a French painter closely associated with the beginning of naturalism, an artistic style that grew out of the Realist movement and paved the way for the development of impressionism. Émile Zola described Bastien-Lapage's work as "impressionism corrected, sweetened and adapted to the taste of the crowd."[1]
Jules Bastien-Lepage
1 November 1848
10 December 1884 (aged 36)
His en plein air depictions of peasant life in the countryside were highly influential on many international artists, including George Clausen in England and Tom Roberts in Australia. He also won renown for his history paintings, among the most famous being Joan of Arc, now held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.[2]
Relationship with Marie Bashkirtseff[edit]
Ukrainian-born painter Marie Bashkirtseff formed a close friendship with Bastien-Lepage.[8] Artistically, she took her cue from the French painter's admiration for nature: "I say nothing of the fields because Bastien-Lepage reigns over them as a sovereign; but the streets, however, have not still had their... Bastien."[9] Her best-known work in this naturalist vein is A Meeting (now in the Musée d'Orsay), which was shown to wide acclaim at the Paris Salon of 1884. By a curious coincidence she succumbed to chronic illness the same year as her colleague and friend.
Art market[edit]
The highest price reached by one of his paintings in the art market was when his Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt (1879) was sold by $2,280,000 at Christie's, on 20 October 2022.[10][11]
Achilles and Priam, 1876
Harvest Time, 1880
Young Girl, 1881
Pauvre Fauvette, 1881
