Jules Bastien-Lepage

Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848–1884) was born in the village of Damvillers in the Meuse, where his father, himself an artist, gave him his first lessons. After training in Verdun he went to Paris in 1867 to study at the École des Beaux-Arts under Alexandre Cabanel, and was wounded fighting in the Franco-Prussian War. He is closely associated with the beginnings of Naturalism, which grew out of Realism. A portrait of his grandfather won a medal at the Salon of 1874, and Haymaking, shown in 1878 and now in the Musée d'Orsay, made him the recognised leader of the Naturalist school. His open-air scenes of country life influenced painters far beyond France, among them George Clausen in England and Tom Roberts in Australia. He also painted history subjects, notably Joan of Arc, exhibited in 1880 and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Long ill, he died in Paris at thirty-six. Here: Joan of Arc.