Chavannes' work is seen as symbolist in nature, even though he studied with some of
the romanticists, and he is credited with influencing an entire generation of painters and
sculptors. His simplified forms, respect for the flatness of the picture surface, rhythmic
line, and use of non-naturalistic color to evoke the mood of the painting appealed to both
the Post-Impressionists and the Symbolists. His paintings were done on canvas and then
affixed to the walls (marouflage), but their pale colors imitated the effect of fresco.
Chavannes did not study painting until his return to Paris at the age of 20. At first he worked
without pay for some artists and afterwards entered those of Delacroix and Couture. After
another year in Italy he returned convinced of the artistic dignity and great eminence of
decorative painting. The art of the great Italian masters, their manner of expressing in large
compositions stamped with simplicity, the marvellous thoughts and the beliefs common to a
period or a people, was thenceforth the object which he set about realizing for his
contemporaries.
Le Travail 1863, Musée de Picardie.
Without being positively Christian his inspiration preserves a clearly spiritual character.
In the midst of the materialistic invasion of the second half of the nineteenth century Puvis
(with Eugène Carrière) was the noblest champion of religious art in France.
The White Rocks 1869-72
Hope 1872
The Poor Fisherman was the first of Puvis de Chavannes' paintings to be bought by the
State. But the work sparked a lively reaction at the Salon of 1881 and was not bought
until 1887 when it was again shown to the public by the art dealer Durand-Ruel. So it
took six years for a national museum to dare to show this radical painting that was so
unrealistic in the light of the conventions of the time. Without recourse to literal
description, Puvis intended to give a view of desolation and resignation by painting a
widower and his two children in a bleak landscape. The choice of the fisherman has
obvious Biblical resonances. In 1881, the synthetic nature of the painting, its refusal
of any modelling and traditional perspective, and its range of greenish hues, ranged
most of the critics against the artist.
The writer Huysmans compared it to a picture from missal or the dull, flat frescoes of
the past. On the other hand, some artists of the younger generation, from Seurat to
Gauguin and Maurice Denis, not to mention Picasso, were enthusiastic over the extreme,
poignant bareness of this silent image. Puvis became the leading light of the new style
of painting.
The Poor Fisherman c. 1881
The Dream 1883
Le Bois sacré cher aux arts et aux Muses 1884
Magdalena 1897
Chavannes was president and co-founder in 1890 of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts
(National Society of Fine Arts) founded in Paris. It became the dominant salon of art at the
time and held exhibitions of contemporary art that was selected only by a jury composed of
the officers of the Société.