Fernand Cormon

The Temptation of Saint Anthony, c. 1890
Etching in black on ivory laid paper
7.38 x 10.38 in
SKU: DB459d
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Fernand Cormon (24 December 1845 - 20 March 1924) was a French painter born in Paris. He became a pupil of Alexandre Cabanel, Eugène Fromentin, and Jean-François Portaels, and one of the leading historical painters of modern France.

At an early age, he attracted attention for the perceived sensationalism in his art, although for a time his powerful brush dwelled with particular delight on scenes of bloodshed, such as the Murder in the Seraglio (1868) and the Death of Ravara, Queen of Lanka at the Toulouse Museum. The Musée d'Orsay has his Cain flying before Jehovah's Curse; and for the Mairie of the fourth arrondissement of Paris, he executed in grisaille a series of panels: Birth, Death, Marriage, War, etc. A Chiefs Funeral, and pictures having the Stone Age as their subject, occupied him for several years. He was appointed to the Legion of Honor in 1880. Subsequently, he also devoted himself to portraiture.

Being well-accepted at the annual Salon, he also ran an art school, the Atelier Cormon in the 1880s where he tried to guide his students to create paintings that would be accepted by the Salon's jury. Among his students with whom he was unsuccessful on this point were, for instance: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Louis Anquetin, Eugène Boch, Paul Tampier, Émile Bernard, and Vincent van Gogh.

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