Charles-François Daubigny ( , , ; 15 February 181719 February 1878) was a French painter, one of the members of the

Barbizon school The Barbizon school of painters were part of an art movement towards Realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870. It takes its name ...

, and is considered an important precursor of

impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

. He was also a prolific printmaker, mostly in

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

but also as one of the main artists to use the

cliché verre Cliché verre, also known as the glass print technique, is a type of "semiphotographic" printmaking. An image is created by various means on a transparent surface, such as glass, thin paper or film, and then placed on light sensitive paper in a ...

technique.

Biography

Daubigny was born in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, into a family of painters; taught the art by his father, , and his uncle,

miniaturist A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache, watercolor, or enamel. Portrait miniatures developed out of the techniques of the miniatures in illuminated manuscripts, and were popular among 16th-century eli ...

Pierre Daubigny (1793-1858). He was also a pupil of Jean-Victor Bertin, Jacques Raymond Brascassat and

Paul Delaroche Hippolyte-Paul Delaroche (17 July 1797 – 4 November 1856) was a French painter who achieved his greater successes painting historical scenes. He became famous in Europe for his melodramatic depictions that often portrayed subjects from English ...

, from whom he would quickly emancipate himself. In 1838, he set up, at the Rue des Amandiers-Popincourt, a community of artists, a phalanstery, with Adolphe-Victor Geoffroy-Dechaume, Hippolyte Lavoignat, Ernest Meissonnier, Auguste Steinheil, Louis Joseph Trimolet, with whom he already had expressed his interest in subjects drawn directly from daily life and nature. These artists will work, among others, for the publisher Léon Curmer, who was specialized in books illustrated with vignettes. From this period date the first confirmed engravings by Daubigny. Initially Daubigny painted in a more traditional style, but this changed after 1843 when he settled in

Barbizon Barbizon () is a commune (town) in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France. It is located near the Fontainebleau Forest. Demographics The inhabitants are called ''Barbizonais''. Art history The Barbizon school of painters is nam ...

to work outside in the nature. Even more important was his meeting with Camille Corot in 1852 in Optevoz (Isère). On his famous boat ''Botin'', which he had turned into a studio, he painted along the Seine and

Oise Oise ( ; ; pcd, Oése) is a department in the north of France. It is named after the river Oise. Inhabitants of the department are called ''Oisiens'' () or ''Isariens'', after the Latin name for the river, Isara. It had a population of 829,41 ...

, often in the region around Auvers. From 1852 onward he came under the influence 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 ...

. The two artists were from the same generation and were driven by the realist movement: during a joint stay, each composed a series of views of Optevoz. In 1848, Daubigny worked on behalf of the Chalcographie du Louvre, performing facsimiles, which testifies to his great expertise in this art, and revisiting the technique of aquatint in a less cumbersome process. His famous series of ''Rolling Carts'' dates from this period. In 1862, with Corot, he experimented with the cliché-verre technique, halfway between photography and printmaking. In 1866, he joined the jury of the Paris Salon for the first time, alongside his friend Corot. The same year, Daubigny visited England, eventually returning because of the Franco-Prussian war, in 1870. In

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

he met

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. Durin ...

, and together they left for the Netherlands. Back in Auvers, he met

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...

, another important Impressionist. It is assumed that these younger impressionist painters were influenced by Daubigny. Daubigny died in

in 1878. His remains are interred at cimetière du Père-Lachaise (division 24). His followers and pupils included his son (whose works are occasionally mistaken for those of his father), , Hippolyte Camille Delpy, Albert Charpin and Pierre Emmanuel Damoye. The two painters who introduced the

Barbizon School The Barbizon school of painters were part of an art movement towards Realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870. It takes its name ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

, in 1879, António da Silva Porto and João Marques de Oliveira, where also his disciples.

Paintings

Charles-François Daubigny - Le printemps - Google Art Project

The most striking paintings by Daubigny were those produced between 1864 and 1874, which depict mostly forest landscapes and lakes. Disappointed because he felt that he did not meet with the same level of success and admiration as his contemporaries, by the end of his career he was nonetheless an extremely sought-after and appreciated artist. The motifs of his paintings, sometimes tending towards repetitiveness and often playing on the horizontality of the landscape underlined by a backlight effect, would be taken up and accentuated by Hippolyte Camille Delpy, his most influenced student. His most ambitious canvases include ''Springtime'' (1857), in the Louvre; ''Borde de la Cure'', Morvan (1864); ''Villerville sur Mer'' (1864); ''Moonlight'' (1865); ''Auvers-sur-Oise'' (1868); and ''Return of the Flock'' (1878). He was named by the French government as an Officer of the Legion of Honor.

In popular culture

The life of Daubigny was adapted into a

graphic novel A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...

by Belgian comics writer Bruno de Roover and artist Luc Cromheecke. It appeared under the title ''De Tuin van Daubigny'' (''The Garden of Daubigny'', 2016).

Public collections

Among the public collections holding works by Charles-François Daubigny are:

Gallery

File:Charles-François Daubigny - Harvest - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Harvest'' (1851)
Musée d'Orsay,

File:Charles-Franҫois Daubigny - The Ponds of Gylieu - Google Art Project.jpg, ''The Ponds of Gylieu '' (1853)

Cincinnati Art Museum The Cincinnati Art Museum is an art museum in the Eden Park neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1881, it was the first purpose-built art museum west of the Alleghenies, and is one of the oldest in the United States. Its collection of ov ...

File:Brooklyn Museum - The River Seine at Mantes - Charles-François Daubigny.jpg, ''The River Seine at Mantes'' (1856)
Brooklyn Museum File:Charles François Daubigny - Banks of the Oise.jpg, ''Banks of the Oise'' (1863)

Saint Louis Art Museum The Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) is one of the principal U.S. art museums, with paintings, sculptures, cultural objects, and ancient masterpieces from all corners of the world. Its three-story building stands in Forest Park in St. Louis, ...

File:Charles François Daubigny - Twilight - Walters 37128.jpg, ''Twilight'' (1866)

Walters Art Museum The Walters Art Museum, located in Mount Vernon-Belvedere, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is a public art museum founded and opened in 1934. It holds collections established during the mid-19th century. The museum's collection was amassed ...

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

File:Charles-François Daubigny 005.jpg, ''La Confluence de la Seine et de l'Oise'' (1868)
Museum of Fine Arts,

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

File:Charles-François Daubigny - Les blanchisseuses (1870s).jpg, ''Les Blanchisseuses'' (1870-1874)
The Frick Collection, New York File:Charles-François Daubigny - Les Sables-d'Olonne - Google Art Project.jpg, '' Les Sables-d'Olonne'', seaside town
in western France File:Charles-François Daubigny - Bateaux sur la côte à Étaples (1871).jpg, ''Boats on the Seacoast at Étaples'' (1871)

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York File:Les Laveuses - Charles Francois Daubigny - ABDAG003149.jpg, ''Les Laveuses'' (1873)

Aberdeen Art Gallery Aberdeen Art Gallery is the main visual arts exhibition space in the city of Aberdeen, Scotland. It was founded in 1884 in a building designed by Alexander Marshall Mackenzie, with a sculpture court added in 1905. In 1900, it received the art ...

File:Lever de lune à Auvers ou le retour du troupeau.jpg, ''Lever de lune à Auvers'', or ''Le Retour du troupeau'' (1878)

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA; french: Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, MBAM) is an art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest art museum in Canada by gallery space. The museum is located on the historic Golden Square ...

File:Charles-François Daubigny - Farm at Kerity, Brittany - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Farm at Kerity'', Brittany

Kunstmuseum Den Haag The Kunstmuseum Den Haag is an art museum in The Hague in the Netherlands, founded in 1866 as the Museum voor Moderne Kunst. Later, until 1998, it was known as Haags Gemeentemuseum, and until the end of September 2019 as Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. I ...

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

Notes

References

External links

*
Charles-François Daubigny – Museum – Musée Daubigny Auvers-sur-Oise

Charles-François Daubigny's Home-Studio
– Maison-Atelier de DAUBIGNY Auvers-sur-Oise. Historical monument.

– Rehs Galleries' biography on the artist.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Daubigny, Charles-Francois 1817 births 1878 deaths Painters from Paris 19th-century French painters French male painters French Realist painters Officiers of the Légion d'honneur Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery 19th-century French male artists