Charles Cottet
Encyclopedia
Le Puy-en-Velay
Le Puy-en-Velay is a commune in the Haute-Loire department in south-central France.Its inhabitants are called Ponots.-History:Le Puy-en-Velay was a major bishopric in medieval France, founded early, though its early history is legendary...
and died in Paris. A famed post-impressionist, Cottet is known for his dark, evocative painting of rural Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
and seascapes
Seascapes
Seascapes is a weekly 30-minute Irish radio programme covering maritime matters broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 on Fridays at 22.30 and presented until recently by the award-winning presenter Tom MacSweeney...
. He led a school of painters known as the Bande noire
Bande noire
La bande noire were speculative, asset-stripping syndicates in the 1820s that bought ancient castles and abbeys at knockdown prices in the wake of the French Revolution, only to demolish them and sell off the building materials...
or Nubians group (for the somber palette they used, in contrast to the brighter post-impressionist paintings), and was friends with such artists as Auguste Rodin
Auguste Rodin
François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
.
Biography
Cottet studied at the École des Beaux-ArtsÉcole des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...
, and under Puvis de Chavannes and Roll
Alfred Philippe Roll
Alfred Philippe Roll was a French painter.- Career :Roll studied at Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he was taught by Jean-Léon Gérôme, Henri-Joseph Harpignies, Charles-François Daubigny and Léon Bonnat. He painted his first landscape in 1869, and in 1870 exhibited "Environs of Baccarat" and "Evening"...
, while also attending the Académie Julian
Académie Julian
The Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students to the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but offered...
(where fellow students formed Les Nabis
Les Nabis
Les Nabis were a group of Post-Impressionist avant-garde artists who set the pace for fine arts and graphic arts in France in the 1890s. Initially a group of friends interested in contemporary art and literature, most of them studied at the private art school of Rodolphe Julian in Paris in the...
school of painting, with which he was later associated). He travelled and painted in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, and on Lake Geneva
Lake Geneva
Lake Geneva or Lake Léman is a lake in Switzerland and France. It is one of the largest lakes in Western Europe. 59.53 % of it comes under the jurisdiction of Switzerland , and 40.47 % under France...
, but he made his name with his sombre and gloomy, firmly designed, severe and impressive scenes of life on the Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
coast.
Cottet exhibited at the Salon of 1889, but on a trip to Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
in 1886 he had found his true calling. For the next twenty years he painted scenes of rural and harbor life, portraying a culture Parisians still found exotic. He is especially noted for his dark seascapes of Breton harbors at dawn, and evocative scenes from the lives of Breton fishermen.
He was close friends with Charles Maurin
Charles Maurin
Charles Maurin was a French painter, engraver and an anarchist who practiced a variety of styles. A notable symbolist work of his being Maternity, a study of motherhood. He was a friend of the painter Felix Vallotton....
, and his group included the painter Félix-Émile-Jean Vallotton
Félix Vallotton
Félix Edouard Vallotton was a Swiss painter and printmaker associated with Les Nabis. He was an important figure in the development of the modern woodcut.-Life and work:...
. Cottet has often been associated with the picturesque seaside symbolism of the Pont-Aven School
Pont-Aven School
Pont-Aven School is a term occupied by works of art iconographically due to Pont-Aven and its surroundings. Originally the term was focusing works of the artists' colony emerging there since the 1850s, and some decades later the work of the group of painters gathering around the artist Paul...
, though Vallotton famously painted Cottet as a leader of Les Nabis
Les Nabis
Les Nabis were a group of Post-Impressionist avant-garde artists who set the pace for fine arts and graphic arts in France in the 1890s. Initially a group of friends interested in contemporary art and literature, most of them studied at the private art school of Rodolphe Julian in Paris in the...
, beside Pierre Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard was a French painter and printmaker, as well as a founding member of Les Nabis.-Biography:...
, Edouard Vuillard
Édouard Vuillard
Jean-Édouard Vuillard was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Nabis.-Early years and education:...
, and Ker-Xavier Roussel
Ker-Xavier Roussel
Ker-Xavier Roussel was a French painter associated with Les Nabis.Born François Xavier Roussel in Lorry-lès-Metz, Moselle, at age fifteen he studied at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris; alongside his friend Édouard Vuillard, he also studied at the studio of painter Diogène Maillart...
, in his Five Painters (1902-3; Kunstmuseum Winterthur
Kunstmuseum Winterthur
Kunstmuseum Winterthur is an art museum in Winterthur, Switzerland run up today by the local Kunstverein, founded in CHK...
). Cottet was more explicitly the leader of his own small movement, the Bande noire
Bande noire
La bande noire were speculative, asset-stripping syndicates in the 1820s that bought ancient castles and abbeys at knockdown prices in the wake of the French Revolution, only to demolish them and sell off the building materials...
of the 1890s, which included Lucien Simon
Lucien Simon
Lucien J. Simon was a French painter and teacher born in Paris.After graduating from the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, he studied painting at the studio of Jules Didier, then from 1880 to 1883 at l’Académie Julian....
and André Dauchez, all influenced by the realism and dark colours of Courbet
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...
.
Selected works
Cottet's paintings can be found in museums in France, the Pushkin Museum of Fine ArtsPushkin Museum
The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts is the largest museum of European art in Moscow, located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour....
in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, the National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
in Washington D.C., the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. and at the Hermitage
Hermitage Museum
The State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...
.
- 1908–09 Au pays de la mer. Douleur also called Les victimes de la mer, the Musée d’Orsay.
- 1905, Petit village au pied de la falaise, Musée MalrauxMusée MalrauxThe Musée Malraux is a museum in Le Havre, France. It was designed by Atelier LWD, an architecture studio led by Guy Lagneau, Michel Weill and Jean Dimitrijevic. It is named after André Malraux, who was Minister of Culture when the museum was opened in 1961...
, Le HavreLe HavreLe Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total... - 1900–10, Montagne, Musée Malraux, Le Havre
- 1896 View of Venice from the Sea, the HermitageHermitage MuseumThe State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...
, St. Petersburg. - 1896 Seascape with Distant View of Venice, the HermitageHermitage MuseumThe State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...
, St. Petersburg. - 1896 Portrait de Cottet, the Musée d'Orsay.
External links
. In Harper's MagazineHarper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
, December 1910. Illustrations by Charles Cottet and Jacques-Emile Blanche
- Biography at Humrich Fine Art.
- Biography at the Oxford Gallery.Cottet et la Bretagne.Quelques œuvres de Charles Cottet in Insecula.Biographie et quelques œuvres on the site of Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper in Quimper, France.