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Lot Essay
Léon Lhermitte was born in 1844 and was still creating paintings in the French rural tradition when he died in 1925, making him the last in an illustrious group of artists.
Lhermitte exhibited artistic talent at an early age and in 1863, he left his home at Mont-Saint-Père in Aisne for the Petite Ecole in Paris, where he studied with Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran. Lecoq was known for his program of training the visual memory of his students, and his theories had a profound effect on the young Léon . It was in Locoq's studio that Lhermitte formed a life-long friendship with Cazin and also became acquainted with Alphonse Legros, Henri Fantin-Latour and Auguste Rodin.
Lhermitte sent his initial entry to the Salon in 1864 when he was just nineteen, won his first medal in 1874 with La moisson (Musée de Carcasonne). The artist was awarded many prizes and honors throughout his life, including the Grand Prix at the Exposition Universelle in 1889, the Diplome d'honneur, Dresden in 1890, and he was made a Chevalier of the legion d'honneur in 1884. He was a founding member of the Société nationale des Beaux-Arts.
Lhermitte's subject matter rarely deviated from the peasants and rural life depicted in the art of his youth. The most profound influence on his art was certainly Jean François Millet who, like Lhermitte, was equally adept at pastels and oils. Like Millet, Lhermitte created beautiful, light-filled works in the Barbizon tradition, reinforcing the dignity of peasant life and the glory of the French rural landscape in the face of encroaching technology.
Lhermitte was an artist much-admired by his peers. Vincent van Gogh wrote of him:
'He is the absolute master of the figure, he does what he likes with it - proceding neither form the color nor the local tone, but rather from the light - as Rembrandt did - there is an astonishing mastery in everything he does, above all excelling in modeling, he perfectly satisfies all that honesty demands.'
Lhermitte exhibited artistic talent at an early age and in 1863, he left his home at Mont-Saint-Père in Aisne for the Petite Ecole in Paris, where he studied with Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran. Lecoq was known for his program of training the visual memory of his students, and his theories had a profound effect on the young Léon . It was in Locoq's studio that Lhermitte formed a life-long friendship with Cazin and also became acquainted with Alphonse Legros, Henri Fantin-Latour and Auguste Rodin.
Lhermitte sent his initial entry to the Salon in 1864 when he was just nineteen, won his first medal in 1874 with La moisson (Musée de Carcasonne). The artist was awarded many prizes and honors throughout his life, including the Grand Prix at the Exposition Universelle in 1889, the Diplome d'honneur, Dresden in 1890, and he was made a Chevalier of the legion d'honneur in 1884. He was a founding member of the Société nationale des Beaux-Arts.
Lhermitte's subject matter rarely deviated from the peasants and rural life depicted in the art of his youth. The most profound influence on his art was certainly Jean François Millet who, like Lhermitte, was equally adept at pastels and oils. Like Millet, Lhermitte created beautiful, light-filled works in the Barbizon tradition, reinforcing the dignity of peasant life and the glory of the French rural landscape in the face of encroaching technology.
Lhermitte was an artist much-admired by his peers. Vincent van Gogh wrote of him:
'He is the absolute master of the figure, he does what he likes with it - proceding neither form the color nor the local tone, but rather from the light - as Rembrandt did - there is an astonishing mastery in everything he does, above all excelling in modeling, he perfectly satisfies all that honesty demands.'