France, (1827-1906)
-
Evening in the Hamlet of Finistere
- (ndg.), oil on canvas
- Private collection
-
Breton Laundresses at Douarnenez
- (1875), oil on canvas
- 15.4 x 13.4 in. (39 x 34 cm.)
- Private collection
About the Artist:
Jules Adolphe Aimé Louis Breton (1827-1906) was a French Realist painter, author and poet. Breton was essentially a painter of rustic life and his work was heavily influenced by the French countryside and the beauty and idyllic vision of rural existence.
Breton’s numerous subjects may be divided generally into four classes: labour, rest, rural festivals and religious festivals. He also wrote several books relating his life as an artist and the lives of other artists that he personally knew and published one volume of poetry, Jeanne.
The province of Artois is where Breton lived most of his life, seldom leaving except for short excursions to Provence, Brittany and Paris. He was one of the best known painters of his period in his native France as well as England and the United States. Breton’s renderings of single peasant female figures in a landscape, posed against the setting sun, were very popular, especially in the United States. [DES-01/16]