Jules François Felix Fleury-Husson (17 September 1821, in

Laon Laon () is a city in the Aisne department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. History Early history The holy district of Laon, which rises a hundred metres above the otherwise flat Picardy plain, has always held strategic importance. ...

, Aisne – 6 December 1889, in

Sèvres Sèvres (, ) is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department, Île-de-France region. The commune, which had a population of 23,251 as of 2018, is known for ...

), who wrote under the name Champfleury (), was a French art critic and novelist, a prominent supporter of the Realist movement in painting and fiction. In 1843 Fleury-Husson moved to Paris. He met

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited ...

and the next year started writing art criticism under the pen-name "Champfleury" for the journal ''

L'Artiste ''L’Artiste'' was a weekly illustrated review published in Paris from 1831 to 1904, supplying "the richest single source of contemporary commentary on artists, exhibitions and trends from the Romantic era to the end of the nineteenth century." ...

''. He was one of the first to promote the work of

Gustave Courbet Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and ...

, in an article appearing in an issue of '' Le Pamphlet'' in 1848. In 1850, during a time when the Spanish school was still largely ignored, he advocated the work of El Greco. He wrote about the Le Nain brothers and

Maurice Quentin de La Tour Maurice Quentin de La Tour (5 September 1704 – 17 February 1788) was a French Rococo portraitist who worked primarily with pastels. Among his most famous subjects were Voltaire, Rousseau, Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour. Biography Maurice ...

. He also had a brief affair in 1851 with Eveline Hańska, the widow of his friend

Honoré de Balzac Honoré de Balzac ( , more commonly , ; born Honoré Balzac;Jean-Louis Dega, La vie prodigieuse de Bernard-François Balssa, père d'Honoré de Balzac : Aux sources historiques de La Comédie humaine, Rodez, Subervie, 1998, 665 p. 20 May 179 ...

.Robb, Graham. Balzac: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton &x Company, 1994. . p. 414. He edited the periodical '' Le réalisme'' in 1856 and 1857. His novels, of which the best-known is '' Les bourgeois de Molinchart'' (1854), were among the earliest Realist works. In 1869 his book ''Les Chats'', a series of essays about cats including portrayals of cats by prominent artists of the time, was published by Librairie de la Société Botanique de France, edited by J. Rothschild. From 1872 until his death in 1889 he was Chief of Collections at the Sèvres porcelain factory. The character of Marcel in Henri Murger's '' Scènes de la vie de bohème'', and thus the corresponding character Marcello in

Puccini Giacomo Puccini ( Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long ...

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

based on it, was partially based on Champfleury. Champfleury was a friend of Murger and they had roomed together for a time.

Selected publications

* Troubat, ''Souvenirs sur Champfleury et le Réalisme'' (Paris, 1905)

References

Biography * Lo Feudo, Michela
« Du journalisme à l’art populaire. Biographie intellectuelle de Jules Champfleury, polygraphe du XIX^e siècle »
in ''BEROSE - International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology'', Paris.

External links

* * * "Champfleury, Jules (1821-1889)" i
Bérose Encyclopaedia

Finding aid to Jules Champfleury papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
*Resources related to research
BEROSE - International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology
Paris. (ISSN 2648-2770) 1820 births 1889 deaths People from Laon French art critics 19th-century French journalists French male journalists 19th-century French novelists French male novelists 19th-century French male writers {{France-novelist-19thC-stub