Sunday, August 11, 2019

Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898) - Allegories and Epitomes

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Abundance
1895
lithograph
Art Institute of Chicago

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Charity
ca. 1889-93
oil on canvas
Victoria & Albert Museum

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Despair
1864
drawing
Harvard Art Museums

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Patriotism
ca. 1893
oil on paper
Ohara Museum of Art, Kurashiki, Japan

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Vigilance
1867
oil on canvas
National Galleries of Scotland

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Meditation
1866
oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

"Certain people whom I no longer saw wrote to me and asked me "what I thought" of these two marriages, precisely as though they had been inviting a public discussion of the height of women's hats in the theatre or the psychological novel. I had not the heart to answer these letters. Of these two marriages, I thought nothing at all, but I did feel an immense melancholy, as when two parts of our past existence, which have been anchored near to us, and upon which we have perhaps been basing idly from day to day an unacknowledged hope, remove themselves finally, with a joyous crackling of flames, for unknown destinations, like two vessels on the high seas."   

– Marcel Proust, from Albertine Disparue (1925), translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff as The Sweet Cheat Gone (1930)

"Some people whom I hardly knew to speak to wrote to me and asked 'what I thought' of these two marriages, absolutely as if they were conducting an inquiry into the height of the hats which women wore to the theatre, or into the psychological novel. I was unable to face replying to these letters. Confronted with these two marriages, I did not think anything at all, but felt an immense sadness, as you do when two parts of your past existence, previously moored alongside you and in which perhaps from one day to the next you may have been harbouring some half-hearted, secret investment, leave for ever, with all flags proudly flying, like two ships sailing for foreign parts." 

– Marcel Proust, from Albertine Disparue (1925), translated by Peter Collier as The Fugitive (2002)

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Allegory
1848
oil on canvas
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Allegory of Life
ca. 1873
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Personification of the Rhone
ca. 1883-86
pastel
National Museum, Warsaw

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Personification of the Saone
ca. 1883-86
pastel
National Museum, Warsaw

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
The Dream
1883
oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
The Poet
1896
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Norway, Oslo

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Homer: Epic Poetry
ca. 1895
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Winter, or, Esau returning from the Hunt
ca. 1854-55
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Work
ca. 1863
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC