Alphonse Legros
Paintings, Drawings
Cupid and Psyche
The Blessing of the Sea
Portrait of a Woman
Head of a Man with Upturned Eyes
Mountains Seen beyond a Lake
Female Nude Seated
Study of Two Figures Seated Side by Side
Torso
Centaur Woman
Centaur with Branches
Study of a Greek
Study of a Man's Figure, Holding Rod behind Back
Death and Its Horse
Study from the Antique
Portrait of Sir Edward J. Poynter PRA
Eroded and gangrenous nasal cartilage due to syphilis
Professor John Marshall, FRS (1818-1891), Surgeon
The Legend of Misery man" (Death in the pear)
Syphilis; face of a dead man with erosion of the nose,
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Cupid and Psyche
Alphonse Legros (Dijon 8 May 1837 – 8 December 1911 Watford), was a French painter, etcher, sculptor, and medallist
His father was an accountant, and came from the neighbouring village of
Véronnes. Young Legros frequently visited the farms of his relatives,
and the peasants and landscapes of that part of France are the subjects
of many of his pictures and etchings. He was sent to the art school at
Dijon with a view to qualifying for a trade, and was apprenticed to
Maître Nicolardo, house decorator and painter of images. In 1851 Legros
left for Paris to take another situation; but passing through Lyon he
worked for six months as journeyman wall-painter under the decorator
Beuchot, who was painting the chapel of Cardinal Bonald in the
cathedral.
In Paris he studied with Cambon, scene-painter and decorator of
theatres, an experience which developed a breadth of touch such as
Stallfield and Cox picked up in similar circumstances. At this time he
attended the drawing-school of Lecoq de Boisbaudran (the "Petite
école") where he found himself in sympathy with Jules Dalou and Auguste
Rodin. In 1855 Legros attended the evening classes of the École des
Beaux Arts, and perhaps gained there his love of drawing from the
antique, some of the results of which may be seen in the Print Room of
the British Museum.
He
sent two portraits to the Paris Salon of 1857: one was rejected, and
formed part of the exhibition of protest organized by Bonvin in his
studio; the other, which was accepted, was a profile portrait of his
father. This work was presented to the museum at Tours by the artist
when his friend Cazin was curator. Champfleury saw the work in the
Salon, and sought out the artist to enlist him in the small army of
so-called "Realists," comprising (round the noisy glory of Courbet) all
those who raised protest against the academical trifles of the
degenerate Romantics.
In 1859 Legros's L'Angelus was
exhibited, the first of those quiet church interiors, with kneeling
figures of patient women, by which he is best known as a painter. Ex
Voto (1861), a work of great power and insight, now in the museum at
Dijon, was received by his friends with enthusiasm, but it only
obtained a mention at the Salon. Legros came to England in 1863 and in
1864 married Miss Frances Rosetta Hodgson. At first he lived by his
etching and teaching. He then became teacher of etching at the South
Kensington School of Art, and in 1876 Slade Professor at University
College, London in succession to Sir Edward Poynter.[2]
portrait etching of Dalou by Legros
He
was naturalized as a British citizen in 1881, and remained at
University College seventeen years. His influence there was exerted to
encourage a certain distinction, severity and truth of character in the
work of his pupils, with a simple technique and a respect for the
traditions of the old masters, until then somewhat foreign to English
art. He would draw or paint a torso or a head before the students in an
hour or even less, so that the attention of the pupils might not be
dulled. As students had been known to take weeks and even months over a
single drawing, Legros ordered the positions of the casts in the
Antique School to be changed once every week. In the painting school he
insisted upon a good outline, preserved by a thin rub in of umber, and
then the work was to be finished in a single painting, "premièr coup."
portrait etching of Rodin by Legros
Experiments
in all varieties of art work were practised; whenever the professor saw
a fine example in the museum, or when a process interested him in a
workshop, he never rested until he had mastered the technique and his
students were trying their apprentice hands at it. As he had casually
picked up the art of etching by watching a comrade in Paris working at
a commercial engraving, so he began the making of medals after a walk
in the British Museum, studying the masterpieces of Pisanello, and a
visit to the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris. Legros, considered the
traditional journey to Italy a very important part of artistic
training, and in order that his students should have the benefit of
such study he devoted a part of his salary to augment the income
available for a travelling studentship. His later works, after he
resigned his professorship in 1892, were more in the free and ardent
manner of his early days—imaginative landscapes, castles in Spain, and
farms in Burgundy, etchings like the series of The Triumph of Death,
and the sculptured fountains for the gardens of the Duke of Portland at
Welbeck Abbey.
Works
Pictures, drawings and etchings by Legros, besides those already mentioned, may be seen in the following galleries and museums:
A. Legros - The Calvary, Orsay
"Amende Honorable," "Dead Christ," bronzes, medals and twenty-two drawings, in the Luxembourg, Paris
"Landscape," "Study of a Head," and portraits of Browning, Burne-Jones,
Cassel, Huxley and Marshall, at the Victoria and Albert Museum,
Kensington
"Femmes en prière" (Tate, London)
"The Tinker," and six other works from the lonides Collection, bequeathed to South Kensington
"Christening," "Barricade," "The Poor at Meat," two portraits and
several drawings and etchings, collection of Lord Carlisle
"Two Priests at the Organ," "Landscape" and etchings, collection of Rev. Stopford Brooke
"Head of a Priest," collection of Mr Vereker Hamilton
"The Weed-burner," some sculpture and a large collection of etchings and drawings, Mr Guy Knowles
"Psyche," collection of Mr L W Hudson
"Snow Scene," collection of George Frederic Watts RA
thirty-five drawings and etchings, the Print Room, British Museum
"Jacob's Dream" and twelve drawings of the antique, Cambridge
"Saint Jerome," two studies of heads and some drawings, Manchester
"The Pilgrimage" and "Study made before the Class" (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool)
"Study of Heads," Peel Pan Museum, Salford.
"Portrait
of Cardinal With Patron Saint"(oil painting),Snite Art Museum,Notre
Dame,Indiana See Dr Hans W Singer, "Alphonse Legros," Die graphischen
Künste (1898); Léonce Bénédite, "Alphonse Legros," Revue d'an (Paris,
1900); Cosmo Monkhouse, 'Professor Legros', Magazine of Art (1882).
References
Legros, Alphonse in: L. Forrer: Biographical Dictionary of Medallists, Volume III, London 1907, p. 375-378.
"Legros, Alphonse". Who's Who: p. 1193. 1911.
Public Domain This article incorporates text from a publication now in
the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Legros, Alphonse".
Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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