Charles-François Daubigny

Charles-François Daubigny ( , , ; 15 February 181719 February 1878) was a French painter, one of the members of the Barbizon school, and is considered an important precursor of impressionism.

He was also a prolific printmaker, mostly in etching, and one of the main artists who used the cliché verre technique.

Biography Daubigny was born in Paris, into a family of painters; taught art by his father, , and his uncle, miniaturist Pierre Daubigny (1793–1858). He was also a pupil of Jean-Victor Bertin, Jacques Raymond Brascassat and Paul Delaroche, from whom he would quickly emancipate himself. Though best known for his painted landscapes, Daubigny survived for many years as a graphic artist, illustrating books, magazines and travel guides for publication.

In 1838, he set up, at the Rue des Amandiers-Popincourt, a community of artists, a phalanstery, with Adolphe-Victor Geoffroy-Dechaume, Hippolyte Lavoignat, Ernest Meissonnier, Auguste Steinheil, Louis Joseph Trimolet, with whom he already had expressed his interest in subjects drawn directly from daily life and nature. These artists will work, among others, for the publisher Léon Curmer, who was specialized in books illustrated with vignettes. From this period date the first confirmed engravings by Daubigny.

Initially Daubigny painted in a more traditional style, but this changed after 1843 when he settled in Barbizon to work outside in nature. Even more important was his meeting with Camille Corot in 1852 in Optevoz (Isère). From 1852 onward, he was influenced by Gustave Courbet. The two artists were from the same generation and were driven by the realist movement: during a joint stay, each composed a series of views of Optevoz.

In 1848, Daubigny worked on behalf of the Chalcographie du Louvre, performing facsimiles, which testifies to his great expertise in this art, and revisiting the technique of aquatint in a less cumbersome process. His famous series of Rolling Carts dates from this period.

Self-portrait of Daubigny painting in his floating studio, from Voyage en Bateau. In 1857, Daubigny bought a boat and outfitted it as a floating studio, taking his first excursion in November of that year. As "captain" of the Botin, he painted along the Seine and Oise, often in the region around Auvers. In 1862, Daubigny published Voyage en Bateau, a series of 19 etchings (including the title page) depicting the artist's life on and along the water in his floating atelier, accompanied by a "cabin boy," his son Karl. "This was a practice that greatly inspired Claude Monet, who followed Daubigny and made his own studio boat."

In 1862, with Corot, he experimented with the cliché-verre technique, a process halfway between photography and printmaking.

In 1866, he joined the jury of the Paris Salon for the first time, alongside his friend Corot. The same year, Daubigny visited England, eventually returning because of the Franco-Prussian War, in 1870. In London he met Claude Monet, and they left for the Netherlands together. Back in Auvers, he was visited by an admiring Paul Cézanne.

Daubigny died in Paris in 1878. His remains are interred at cimetière du Père-Lachaise (division 24).

Legacy

His followers and pupils included his son Karl Pierre Daubigny, , Hippolyte Camille Delpy, Albert Charpin and Pierre Emmanuel Damoye. The two painters who introduced the Barbizon School in Portugal in 1879, António da Silva Porto and João Marques de Oliveira, were also his disciples.

Upon learning of Daubigny's death, Vincent van Gogh wrote in a letter:It must be truly good, when one dies, to be conscious of having done a thing or two in truth, knowing that as a result one will continue to live in the memory of at least a few, and having left a good example to those who follow. If others appear later, they can do no better than to follow in the footsteps of such predecessors and to do it the same way.

In popular culture The life of Daubigny was adapted into a graphic novel by Belgian comics writer Bruno de Roover and artist Luc Cromheecke. It appeared under the title De Tuin van Daubigny in 2016, and in an ebook English translation by James Vandermeersch, as Daubigny's Garden, in 2017.

Public collections Among the public collections holding works by Charles-François Daubigny are:

Gallery