‘Contemplation’
Oil on canvas
16″ x 13″
Louis Deschamps
French 1846 – 1902
Louis Deschamps was born in Montelimar in 1846 and studied at L’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Lyon, before going to Paris, under the tutorage of the artist Cabanal, between 1870 an 1876. It was in Paris where Louis Deschamps’ developed a unique talent for depicting the faces of innocence and naivety, often using young, natural peasant girls as his models and inspiration.
In Louis Deschamps’ painting Contemplation, the artist has dispensed with the traditional academic approach to portrait painting and using a subtle range of muted colours, he has produced a study of hypnotic quietude. Louis Deschamps has used a dancing economy of brushwork to describe light – a subdued light emanating from an unseen light source, gently illuminate’s the girl’s face and her hand, which she delicately holds to her lips, completely lost in her thoughts.
Louis Deschamps also painted in watercolour and pastel, subjects, which included portraits, religious scenes, historical genre and paintings illustrating his feelings of social conscience – poor peasants, abandoned babies and seduced young girls.
Louis Deschamps enjoyed academic and commercial success, exhibiting at the Paris Salon, from 1876, firstly his historical genre and then scenes of rustic life. He died in his hometown Montelimar in 1902.
© Sutcliffe Galleries 2019