Jules Dupré

Dupré, 1870: 'Portrait of the artist at his easel', oil-painting on canvas; location: Musée Louis-Senlecq, L'Isle-Adam, France

Jules Dupré (5 April 1811 – 6 October 1889) was a French landscape painter and one of the chief artists of the Barbizon school; characteristic exponents of his painting style are the tragic and dramatic aspects in his landscape paintings.

Quotes of Jules Dupré

sorted chronologically, by date of the quotes of Jules Dupré

Dupré, probably c. 1831: 'The Headland / Point de Dunes; Seapiece', oil-painting on canvas; location: Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, Scotland

Dupré, 1840-1844: 'Village Landscape', oil-painting on canvas; location: Hermitage Museum, Petersburg

Dupré, 1840-1850: 'Le moulin à vent / The Windmill', oil-painting

Dupré, 1870: 'Landscape', oil-painting; - quote of w:Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot: '[Dupré].. ..the Beethoven of landscape!'

• What man touches, he can become master of, but to paint that sky [French Riviera] without clouds, that well of light, is as hopeless a task as it would be to sound its depths.
  • Quote of Dupré, c 1844-45; as cited by Charles Sprague Smith, in Barbizon days, Millet-Corot-Rousseau-Barye publisher, A. Wessels Company, New York, July 1902, p. 164
  • Together, Dupré and Theodore Rousseau struggled in vain for five months of 1844 with the constant fathomless azure blue of the southern sky

• It will be hard to fill the place of the painter [ Corot ]; it will be impossible to fill the place of the man.
  • Quote of Dupré in 1875; as quoted by Albert Wolff, 1880's, in Notes upon certain masters of the XIX century, - printed not published MDCCCLXXXVI (1886), The Art Age Press, 400 N.Y. (written after the exhibition 'Cent Chefs-d'Oeuvres: the Choice of the French Private Galleries', Petit, Paris / Baschet, New York, 1883, p. 16
  • When Corot died in 1875, Jules Dupré spoke these short words about his friend

• To have that under one's eyes and not paint it is stupid.
  • Dupré, quoted by Albert Wolff, 1880's, Notes upon certain masters of the XIX century, - printed not published MDCCCLXXXVI (1886), The Art Age Press, 400 N.Y. (written after the exhibition 'Cent Chefs-d'Oeuvres: the Choice of the French Private Galleries', Petit, Paris / Baschet, New York, 1883, p. 35
  • Jules Dupré was passing some Summer-weeks at Cayeux-sur-Mer, looking out on the sea from his window. From this day he transformed in a painter of marines; according to Wolff

• You think then, that I know my profession? Why, my poor fellow; if I had nothing more to find out and to learn I could not paint any longer.
  • as quoted by Albert Wolff, 1880's, in Notes upon certain masters of the XIX century, - printed not published MDCCCLXXXVI (1880's), The Art Age Press, 400 N.Y. (written after the exhibition 'Cent Chefs-d'Oeuvres: the Choiche of the French Private Galleries', Petit, Paris / Baschet, New York, 1883, p. 36
  • Dupré is responding in this quote to a purchaser who was teasing him to finish a picture only in a few hours. Dupré replied in the presence of Albert Wolff

Quotes about Jules Dupré

sorted chronologically, by date of the quotes of Jules Dupré

• [Jules Dupré].. ..the Beethoven of landscape!
  • Quote of Camille Corot; as cited by Albert Wolff, 1880's, Notes upon certain masters of the XIX century, - printed not published MDCCCLXXXVI (1886), The Art Age Press, 400 N.Y. (written after the exhibition 'Cent Chefs-d'Oeuvres: the Choice of the French Private Galleries', Petit, Paris / Baschet, New York, 1883, p. 34
  • this quote expresses in what way Corot valued the painting art of Jules Dupré; Corot himself was often called the 'Mozart of landscape-painting' in Paris

• Jules Dupré had hired at four hundred francs a year a working-room in the Abbey of Saint-Pierre, in the midst of the forest of Fontainebleau. He came but rarely to Paris, and then on his friends' affairs rather than on his own. It was he who forced Rousseau on the merchants. It was he, too, who peddled the despised works of Millet among a few collectors of his acquaintance, and who divined Troyon and protected him. He always fled the great city; he regained the solitude of the fields which had become a necessity.
  • Quote about Dupré by Albert Wolff, 1880's Notes upon certain masters of the XIX century, - printed not published MDCCCLXXXVI (1886), The Art Age Press, 400 N.Y. (written after the exhibition 'Cent Chefs-d'Oeuvres: the Choice of the French Private Galleries', Petit, Paris / Baschet, New York, 1883, p. 33-34

• But not only is Jules Dupré the last survivor of the illustrious group the Barbizon School, he was its precursor. He indicated first in [French] modern art the return to the eternal source of nature. His admiration for these lost comrades is so sincere that he will not allow himself to be called their chief; before posterity they form his equals, but in the past it was he who showed the way.
  • Quote about Dupré by Albert Wolff, 1886, Notes upon certain masters of the XIX century, - printed not published MDCCCLXXXVI (1886), The Art Age Press, 400 N.Y. (written after the exhibition 'Cent Chefs-d'Oeuvres: the Choiche of the French Private Galleries', Petit, Paris / Baschet, New York, 1883, p. 29

• In July, 1841, Th. Rousseau went to Monsoult, on the borders of the Isle-Adam, where Daubigny and Corot often painted, and there with Jules Dupre he painted for several months. His studio was next door to Dupre's, whose mother became in some sense head of this artistic community of three, and very quiet and happy the time was found. Several artists visited them, such as Decamps and Barye, and this period of Rousseau's life is marked by great quietness.
  • Quote of D. C. Thomson, in The Barbizon School of Painters: Corot, Rousseau, Diaz, Millet, Daubigny, etc., D. C. Thomson; Scribner and Welford, New York 1890 – (copy nr. 78), p. 120

• fr:Alfred Sensier tells how Dupré saved at least one canvas, 'Border of the Forest' which Rousseau, morbidly critical, was about to injure by over-painting, or destroy altogether, by urging him to turn its face to the wall and give it a long month's lease of life. When the month had expired, he [Rousseau] examined it long and searchingly in Dupre's presence, finally exclaiming: 'Well, I am going to sign it; it is finished.'
  • Quote about Dupré & Theodore Rousseau, by Charles Sprague Smith, in Barbizon days, Millet-Corot-Rousseau-Barye publisher, A. Wessels Company, New York, July 1902, p. 161

• Dupré's colour is sonorous and resonant; the subjects for which he showed marked preference are dramatic sunset effects and stormy skies and seas. Late in life he changed his style and gained appreciably in largeness of handling and arrived at greater simplicity in his color harmonies. Among his chief works are the 'Morning' [1] and 'Evening' at the Louvre museum.
  • Quote about Dupré from the Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911 – volume 27 [2]

• Rousseau's other friend and neighbour [in Barbizon], Jules Dupré, himself an eminent landscape painter of Barbizon, relates the difficulty Rousseau experienced in knowing when his picture was finished, and how he, Dupré, would sometimes take away from the studio some canvas on which Rousseau was labouring too long.
  • Quote from the Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911 – volume 23; [3]

External links

• selection of pictures of Jules Dupré on Wikiart
• Environs de Plymouth - Rehs Galleries' biography on Jules Dupré and an image of his early painting Environs de Plymouth