Jules Bastien Lepage Biography | Oil Paintings

Jules Bastien-Lepage liked drawing, the first teacher was his father, himself an amateur artist and his parents living on a humble farm, encouraged his creativity by buying prints of paintings for him to duplicate.

Jules Bastien-Lepage had his first formal art training was at Verdun and prompted by a love of art he went to Paris in 1867 at the age of nineteen and was admitted to study under Alexandre Cabanel at the École des Beaux-Arts. He only occasionally appearing in class, and spent most of his time working alone and still managed to win first place for drawing. Slowly but surely he completed three years at the school, just in time for the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, in which he fought and was wounded. After the war, he returned home to paint the villagers and recover from his wound.

After exhibiting works in the Salons of 1870 and 1872 which attracted no attention, this changed in 1873 when he painted his grandfather in the garden, and in 1874 he exhibited the painting Portrait of my Grandfather, received critical acclaim and he was awarded a third-class medal at the same time he showed Song of Spring, an academically-oriented study of rural life.

Jules Bastien-Lepage success was confirmed in 1875 by the oil painting First Communion, a canvas done up in a manner that was compared to Hans Holbein. In 1875 he took second place in the competition for the Prix de Rome with his Annunciation to the Shepherds. To the Salon of 1878 Haymaking (Les Foins) was exhibited, and was praised by critics and the public alike. It secured his status as one of the first painters in the Naturalist school.

This fame brought him prominent commissions including the Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt, painted in a light tone, won him the Cross of the Legion of Honor and in 1879 he was commissioned to paint the Prince of Wales. In 1880 he exhibited Joan of Arc Listening to the Voices now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Art Movement: Naturalism
Artists Influencing Jules Bastien-Lepage: His father, Alexandre Cabanel
He Traveled To Italy, Algeria
Painters Jules Bastien-Lepage Influenced: Claude Monet
Artist's Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.