THE CONTEMPLATOR

Cult Art

Fine Art Giclée Print

Co-created and published by PINEAPPLE GALLERY

Original Works: Eugène Carrière(French, 1849-1906)

Eugène Anatole Carrière (1849 – 1906) was a French Symbolist artist of the Fin de siècle period. His paintings are best known for their brown monochrome palette, we look at new colour to bring new light to his work. He was a close friend of the sculptor Rodin and his work influenced Picasso.

Eugene studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and later under Cabanel. During the Franco-Prussian War he experienced being a prisoner in Dresden, the art of Rubens made a lasting impression on him until about 1890, when he began to develop his own distinctive style, which usually involved figures shrouded in a pearly mist, delicate, predominantly grey tonalities, and soft modelling, he adopted the grey, misty-colour scheme with contrasts of light and shadow, so characteristic of his art, but which no other artist has been able to imitate without affectation, his work has a dreamlike quality.

His themes usually are scenes of his domestic life, and he repeatedly introduced the likeness of his wife in his paintings.

Carrière was one of the leaders in the secessionist movement, which led to the founding of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts.

(A term under which two groups of French artists united, the first for some exhibitions in the early 1860s, the second since 1890 for annual exhibitions)