Musée No:583.090
Regular price £15.00Flower still life
Artist: Adolphe Monticelli
Date: 1875
Adolphe Joseph Thomas Monticelli (1824-1886) was a French painter in the years just before the Impressionists. He studied under Delaroche at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and made copies of the Old Masters in the Louvre. He met Diaz of the Barbizon school in the 1850s and the two often painted together in the forests of Fontainebleau. Montecelli was inspired by Diaz’s use of figures and nudes and would also include them in his romantic colourful landscapes. During 1860s he was friends with Paul Cezanne and they often painted together in the countryside around Aix en Provence. He dabbled with the Impressionist style of portraying ‘light’ but he stayed with his own distinctive style.In the 1870s he returned to his home town of Marseille where despite being a prolific painter he lived in poverty, sadly only charging small amounts for his works. In 1885 he had an ‘attack’, possibly a stroke, and subsequently could only move ‘his eyes and his brain’, he died the following year. His reputation grew after his death. After seeing his works in Paris at the end of 1886 Vincent van Gogh was inspired by Monticelli’s technique and use of colour, subsequently his own palette became brighter and bolder. Van Gogh and his brother Theo published the first book about Monticelli. Oscar Wilde collected his paintings and wrote to ‘Bosie’ about his regret in selling them because of his bankruptcy.
