A great virtuoso, he achieved brilliant successes alike in watercolour, pastel, oil and etching, both in portraiture, in landscape and in decoration. Partly under the influence of Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, whom he studied during a three-years stay in England, he applied his methods to a brilliant series of portraits, especially of women.
A symbolist in his decorative work, Besnard's frank delight in the external world and his “chic” luminous technique bring him close to the 18th-century French painters. A foundation member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1890, in 1913 he became a member of the Institute. He succeeded Carolus Duran as director of the Académie française in Rome. In 1912, he became a member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts and became director of the École des Beaux Arts in 1922. In 1923 he co-founded the Salon des Tuileries.
He was represented in the official exhibition of French art held in the United States in 1919-20 by a symbolic 1917 portrait of Cardinal Mercier. An important exhibition of his works was shown in different cities of the United States in 1924.
Buste de femme
Comtesse Pillet-Will
La loge
La femme aux cheveux roux
Madame Georges Rodenbach
The Redhead
Peacock Feathers
Portrait d'une femme
à la chevelure rousse
Portrait of Charley's Children
Portrait d'une jeune femme
Storytime
Young Red-Haired Woman
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