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Eugène Fromentin

Born	(1820-10-24)24 October 1820 La Rochelle, France
Died	27 August 1876(1876-08-27) (aged 55) La Rochelle, France
Nationality	French
Education	Louis Cabat
Known for	Painter, Novelist, Travel literature, Art critic
Movement	Orientalist
Signature

Eugène Fromentin (French pronunciation: [øʒɛn fʁɔmɑ̃tɛ̃]; 24 October 1820 – 27 August 1876) was a French painter and writer.

Life and career

He was born in La Rochelle. After leaving school he studied for some years under Louis Cabat, the landscape painter. Fromentin was one of the earliest pictorial interpreters of Algeria, having been able, while quite young, to visit the land and people that suggested the subjects of most of his works, and to store his memory as well as his portfolio with the picturesque and characteristic details of North African life. His first great success was produced at the Salon of 1847, by the Gorges de la Chiffa. In 1849, he was awarded a medal of the second class.

In 1852, he paid a second visit to Algeria, accompanying an archaeological mission, and then completed that minute study of the scenery of the country and of the habits of its people which enabled him to give to his after-work the realistic accuracy that comes from intimate knowledge.

His books include Les Maîtres d'autrefois ("The Masters of Past Time", 1876), an influential appreciation of Early Netherlandish painting and the Northern Baroque of the Old Masters of Belgium and Holland, Dominique and A Summer in the Sahara. In Les Maîtres d'autrefois he deals with the complexity of paintings by Rubens, Rembrandt and others, their style and the artists' emotions at the time of creating their masterpieces. He is also one of the first "art critics" to approach the subject of The Old Masters from a personal point of view – being a painter himself. He also puts the work in a social, political and economic context, as the Dutch Golden Age painting develops shortly after Holland won its independence. Bernhard Berenson wrote of the book, "I carry Fromentin with me, and read him each evening about the pictures I have seen that he criticizes. He is the only writer on pictures worth his salt, but I do not always agree with him."

Fromentin, who maintained that "art is the expression of the invisible by means of the visible," was much influenced in style by Eugène Delacroix. His works are distinguished by striking composition, great dexterity of handling and brilliancy of colour. In them is given with great truth and refinement the unconscious grandeur of barbarian and animal attitudes and gestures. His later works, however, show signs of an exhausted vein and of an exhausted spirit, accompanied or caused by physical enfeeblement.

But it must be observed that Fromentin's paintings show only one side of a genius that was perhaps even more felicitously expressed in literature, though with less profusion. Dominique, first published in the Revue des deux mondes in 1862, and dedicated to George Sand, is remarkable among the fiction of the century for delicate and imaginative observation and for emotional earnestness.

Fromentin's other literary works include Visites artistiques (1852); Simples Pèlerinages (1856); Un été dans le Sahara (1857); Une année dans le Sahel (1858). In 1876 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Academy. He died suddenly at La Rochelle on 27 August 1876.

Gallery

Selection of works
Arabian Encampment, 1848
North African Landscape, 1847 ~ 1848
Boerenerf met vee , 1849
Arabs Watering Their Horses, ca. 1850
Arab woman, 1852
Enterrement maure , 1853
La rue Bab-el-Gharbi, à El-Aghouat, 1859
Kabyle Shepherd, 1861
Cavaliers arabes ou la rencontre , 1862
Windstorm on the Esparto Plains of the Sahara, 1864
Coup de vent sur les plaines d'alfa , 1864
Hunting Heron, Algeria, 1865
An Encampment in the Atlas Mountains, 1865
Standard Bearer, 1860 ~ 1865
Arabs on the Way to the Pastures of the Tell, 1866
Before the Race – Fantasia or The Halt in the Desert, 1867
L'Incendie , 1867
Centaures, 1868
Halte de cavaliers arabes dans la forêt , 1868
Crossing the Ford, Algeria, 1869
Une Fantasia – Algeria, 1869
Les tombeaux des Califes au Caire , ca. 1870
Nil çayı (Turkish) , 1870
Arabs, 1871
On the Nile, Near Philae, 1871
Orientals , 1872
Campement dans le Sahara , 1872
The Banks of the Nile, 1874
Un ravin : souvenir d’Algérie , 1875
Cavalier peint en Algérie , 1875
La caravane (scène de la vie nomade des Larbaâ Laghouat) , 1875
At the Well, 1875
Un Souvenir d'Esneh , 1876
Le Simoun , 1876
Horses Watering in a River, undated
Bedouins Watering Their Horses, undated
Moroccan Horsemen at the Foot of the Chiffra Cliffs, undated
Head of an Old Woman, undated
The Boar Hunt, undated
Départ pour la chasse , undated
On the Nile, undated
Arab Skirmish, undated
Le repos des chameaux , undated

Bibliography

Notes

Fromentin, 1877.
Speake, 2003, pp. 471–472.
^ Chisholm, Vol. 11, 1911, pp. 246–247.
Fromentin, 1913.
Berenson & Gardner, 1887–1924, p. 19.
Du Camp, 1859, p. 120.
Gazette des beaux-arts, April–May–June 1859, pp. 292–294.

Inline references

Berenson, Bernard (1865–1959); Gardner, Isabella Stewart (1840–1924) (1987). Hadley, Rollin Van Nostrand, Jr. (1927–1992) (ed.). Letter dated March 18, 1888, in → The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1887–1924. Boston: Northeastern University Press. p. 19 – via ISSUU.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) LCCN 86-12554; ISBN 0-9303-5089-8, 978-0-9303-5089-5; OCLC 13642807 (all editions), 875477150.

Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911) . "Fromentin, Eugène". Encyclopædia Britannica (28 Vols. + Index). A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information. Vol. 11 (of 28): "Franciscans to Gibson" (11th ed.). New York: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. pp. 246–247. Retrieved July 27, 2004. LCCN 11-27773; ISSN 0002-7294; OCLC 266598 (all editions).

See

Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed.

Du Camp, Maxime (1822–1894), ed. (1859). Le salon de 1859 (in French). Paris: A. Bourdilliat et Cⁱᵉ, éditeurs (Achille Bourdilliat; 1818–1882). Paris: Librairie nouvelle, Boulevard des Italiens, 15. p. 120 – via BnF, Gallica.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: editors list (link) Retrieved October 15, 2024. OCLC 780169510 (all editions), 1254787485, 1449097819, and 1449097633.

Fromentin, Eugène (1820–1876) (1913) . The Masters of Past Time or Criticism on the Old Flemish & Dutch Painters [uncredited translation of Les maîtres d'autrefois]. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd. (Joseph Malaby Dent; 1849–1926). New York: E.P. Dutton & Co. (Edward Payson Dutton; 1831–1923). Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh. Paris: E. Plon et Cie, imprimeurs-éditeurs. 10, rue Garancière.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) LCCN 14-30268; OCLC 3732207 (all editions).

Fromentin, Eugène (1820–1876) (1877). Vingt-cinq dessins de Eugène Fromentin – reproduits à l'eau-forte par E.L. Montefiore [Twenty-Five Drawings by Eugène Fromentin – Etched Reproductions by E.L. Montefiore] (in-folio) (in French). Biographical and critical text by Philippe Burty (1830–1890) with facsimiles based on sketches by the master. Paris: Librairie de l'art. Printed by Alfred Cadart (1828–1875). Print made by Yves & Barret (photorelief prints illustrating letterpress).{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) BnF 30179375w; OCLC 192841277 (all editions), OCLC 557590929 (all editions), 27205986, and OCLC 1149636614 (all editions) (1891 & 2012 re-prints).

Gazette des beaux-arts [Fine Arts Gazette] (April–May–June 1859). "De l'art et de la curiosité" (in French). Vol. 2 (1ʳᵉ année. Tome deuxième). Rédacteur en chef : M. Charles Blanc (1813–1882), Ancien directeur des Beaux-Arts . Paris: Imprimerie de J. Claye, rue Saint-Benoît, 7 (Jules Alexandre Saturnin Claye; 1806–1886; Wikidata Q55677033). pp. 292–293.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link) Retrieved October 15, 2024. LCCN 08-18272, LCCN 80-649794; ISSN 0016-5530, ISSN 2419-641X; OCLC 7119790 (all editions), OCLC 1570479 (all editions), 763454523, 763652579, 1448446215, and 1448446854.

See Gazette des Beaux-Arts

Via BnF (full document). April 1859. Gallica.
Via HathiTrust (full document). UC Boulder.
Via Google Books (UC Boulder).
Via Google Books (Indiana University).

"La poste – Constantine (Algérie)" (in French). www.engival.fr.

Speake, Jennifer, ed. (2003). Literature of Travels and Explorations (limited preview). Vol. 1: "A to F". New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, an imprint of Taylor & Francis. pp. 471–472. LCCN 2003-5352; ISBN 1-5795-8425-X; OCLC 1158856846 (all editions) (e-book).

General references: works by Eugène Fromentin in English translation

"A Critic's Program" and "A Letter to a Young Artist" in Realism and Tradition in Art, 1848-1900: Sources and Documents, edited by Linda Nochlin, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966, pp. 19–25; reprinted from the Mary Caroline Robbins translation of Gonse (1888).
Between Sea and Sahara: An Algerian Journal, translation by Blake Robinson of Une Anée dans le Sahel (1859), Ohio University Press, 1999; reissued in 2004 by Tauris Parke Paperbacks with the subtitle An Orientalist Adventure.
Dominique. Translated to English by Violet Isabelle Longman (1884–1953). London: Gerald Howe, Ltd. 1862 .{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link) OCLC 752985816 (all editions).
Dominique. Translated to English by Sir Edward Howard Marsh (1872–1953). Reprint by Soho Book Company (1986). 1862 .{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link) ISBN 0-9481-6606-1, 978-0-9481-6606-8; OCLC 14101794 (all editions).
"The Isle of Ré: An Unpublished Fragment" in Eugène Fromentin, Painter and Writer by Louis Gonse, translated by Mary Caroline Robbins, Boston: James R. Osgood and Co., 1888, pp. 251–271; various other quotations, letters, and excerpts by Fromentin, translated by Robbins, appear throughout the book.
The Masters of Past Time, or Criticism on the Old Flemish & Dutch Painters, uncredited translation of Les Maîtres d'autrefois (1876), New York: E.P. Dutton, 1913.
The Old Masters of Belgium and Holland, translation by Mrs. Mary C. Robbins of Les Maîtres d'autrefois (1876), Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1882.

General references: writings about Fromentin in English

Bales, Richard. Persuasion in the French Personal Novel: Studies of Chateaubriand, Constant, Balzac, Nerval, and Fromentin, Birmingham, AL: Summa Publications, 1997.
Beaume, Georges. Fromentin, translated from the French by Frederic Taber Cooper, New York: Stokes, 1913.
Christin, Anne-Marie, and Berrong, Richard M. "Space and Convention in Eugène Fromentin: The Algerian Experience", New Literary History, vol. 15, no. 3, Spring, 1984, pp. 559-574.
Evans, Arthur R., Jr.. The Literary Art of Eugène Fromentin: A Study in Style and Motif, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1966.
"Eugene Fromentin", The Art Amateur, vol. 12, no. 1, Dec., 1884, p. 9.
"Fromentin, Eugène", Benezit Dictionary of Artists, published online 31 October 2011.
Gill, Hélène. "Eugene Fromentin and the Experience of the Desert: Self-quest in the Other's Territory," Chapter 3 in The Language of French Orientalist Painting, Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003.
Gillet, Louis. "Eugène Fromentin" in The Catholic Encyclopedia, New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909.
Gonse, Louis. Eugène Fromentin, Painter and Writer, translated by Mary Caroline Robbins, Boston: James R. Osgood and Co., 1888.
Harris, Frank. "Eugéne Fromentin: The Painter-Writer", Chapter XIV in Latest Contemporary Portraits, New York: The Macaulay Company, 1927.
Hartman, Elwood. Three Nineteenth-Century French Writer/Artists and the Maghreb: The Literary and Artistic Depictions of North Africa by Théophile Gautier, Eugène Fromentin, and Pierre Loti, Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1994.
Kaplan, Judith. "Eugéne Fromentin (1820-1876)" in Orientalist Writers, edited by Coeli Fitzpatrick and Dwayne A. Tunstall, Detroit : Gale Cengage Learning, 2012.
Magill, Frank N., editor. "Dominique by Eugéne Fromentin" in Masterplots: 2010 Plot Stories & Essay Reviews from the World's Fine Literature, Revised Edition, volume 3, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Salem Press, 1976.
Mickel, Emanuel J. Eugène Fromentin, Twayne's World Authors Series 640, Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1981.
Schapiro, Meyer. "Eugene Fromentin as Critic" in Theory and Philosophy of Art: Style, Artist and Society, Selected Papers, New York: George Braziller, 1994.
Thompson, James P. W. "Fromentin, Eugène(-Samuel-Auguste)", Grove Art Online, published online 2003.
Wright, Barbara. "Eugène Fromentin's 'Portrait de Jeune Femme' and the Possible Identification of Its Sources", The Burlington Magazine, vol. 116, no. 854, May, 1974, pp. 274–275.
Wright, Barbara. "A drawing for 'Hodna': an early painting by Eugène Fromentin," The Burlington Magazine, vol. 155, no. 1322, May, 2013, pp. 324-325.
Wright, Barbara. Eugène Fromentin: A Life in Art and Letters, Peter Lang, 2000.
Wright, Barbara. "Eugène Fromentin (1820-76)" in Key Writers on Art, volume I, edited by Chris Murray, New York: Routledge, 2003.

External links

Media related to Eugène Fromentin at Wikimedia Commons

Fromentin, Eugène at Dicitonary of Art Historians
Encyclopædia Britannica
Works by Eugène Fromentin at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Eugène Fromentin at the Internet Archive
www.eugenefromentin.org Works by Eugène Fromentin

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