Aleah Chapin

The Air Was Full

2014

French Academic painter Louis-Joseph Courtat displays his mastery of composition and the female form in this entrancing oil on canvas. Entitled Baigneuses, the work was painted for and exhibited at the 1885 Paris Salon, the foremost exhibition of painters in the Western world. Large in size, it captures two nude bathers within a tranquil beach scene. While the artist's skill for landscape painting is on display, it is his command of form, light and color that bring this canvas to life. The artist specialized in paintings that glorified the nude, and his skill is clear in the luminosity of his models' skin and the classical beauty of their form and proportions. With their soft, undulating curves and flowing hair, Courtat's models reflect the two key influences on the young painter, that of the great Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres as well as his teacher Alexandre Cabanel. Like these two greats who came before him, Courtat similarly follows in the artistic tradition of the female nude that is traceable to classical antiquity and the Italian Renaissance. Born in Paris in 1847, Courtat studied at the famed École des Beaux-Arts under Cabanel. He was one of the Academic master's first students at the school, where he began to teach in 1864. Displaying considerable skill at an early age, Courtat won the Prix de Rome around 1870, and subsequently studied in Rome for a number of years. He returned to Paris in 1873 to make his debut at the Salon, where he was met with immediate success, receiving a third class medal. He received medals again in 1874 and 1875, a remarkable achievement for a painter of his age. In addition to the monumental nudes...

It's just a little embarassing. Our young bather went for a skinny dip in the river and now needs to snatch her clothes without being spotted by the elderly artist on the river bank ...

Guillaume Seignac 1870-1924 French Mutine Signed “G. Seignac” (lower right) Oil on canvas A mischievous maiden dominates this garden scene by French Academic artist Guillaume S...

Classical style allegorical painting with puti and monarchy type figures floating within the clouds. The canvas is framed in a decorative gold frame. Dimensions Without Frame: H 43.5...