Gaston La Touche
French, 1854 - 1913
French painter and printmaker. A self-taught artist, he was from childhood determined to be a painter and was supported in this ambition by his well-to-do parents. He admired Zola and provided drypoint illustrations for his novel L’Assommoir (1879). His first paintings (1880s) were domestic scenes in the style of the Dutch 17th century. They were vigorous, harsh and sombre and met with no success: he burnt most of them in 1891. The influence of his friend Félix Bracquemond prompted him to discard his early style and to use the colours favoured by the Impressionists; his brushwork is characterized by small, petal-like strokes of colour. In 1890 he showed Phlox and Peonies (untraced), both colourful scenes of women, children and flowers, at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, which brought him immediate success. His fêtes galantes and singeries recall French 18th-century art, and he also specialized in Breton subjects, such as Pardon in Brittany (1896; Chicago, IL, A. Inst.)
After receiving the Légion d’honneur in 1900, La Touche was given several official commissions for large-scale decorative schemes. These included four views of fêtes at Versailles (never installed) for the Palais d’Elysée (1906; Paris, Pal. Luxembourg), four decorative panels showing landscapes with figures (untraced) for the Ministère de l’Agriculture, four pictures representing the arts (never installed) for the Ministère de la Justice (exh. Salon 1910; Paris, Pompidou) and decorations for the dining-room of the liner La France (1912; destr. 1930s). These large canvases, reminiscent of the work of such 18th-century artists as Hubert Robert and Jean-Honoré Fragonard, are characterized by glowing colours and broad brushstrokes. In 1908 La Touche exhibited over 300 of his works at the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris. He painted murals, c. 1910, for the house of the dramatist Edmond Rostand at Cambo, Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
Jane Abdy. "La Touche, Gaston." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T049522 (accessed March 8, 2012).
Person TypeIndividual
Italian, 1692 - 1770
