European

Jules Dupre

France 1812-1889
The Storm 25.0082

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Dupré's stormy marine painting is an example of the new direction the mid-century French naturalists were taking. Labeled "naturalists" by the critics, the artists Jules Dupré, Charles-François Daubigny, Narcisse Diaz, Constant Troyon, and Théodore Rosseau chose to paint on the coasts of Normandy, along the River Oise, and in the Forest of Fontainebleau, rather than in their studios in Paris. Their departure from academic neoclassicism and stiff formulaic depictions of idealized landscapes resulted in direct transcriptions of fleeting visual phenomena and landscape impressions, as well as searching descriptions of local scenes discoverable only through close familiarity. Their interest in representing a more objective appearance of landscapes than that taught at the Academy prepared the groundwork for the later painters of the Impressionist circle.

 

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