Georges Rouault
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Georges Rouault (27 May 1871 – 13 February 1958) was a French Fauvist and Expressionist painter.
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Childhood and education
Born in Paris into a poor family, his mother taught him to love arts. At the age of 14, in 1885 was given apprentice to become a glass plainter and glass restorer, which finished in 1890. According to some critics, his apprenticeship as a glass painter impressed on him some peculiarities, such as his typical black contouring or the expressionist fashion of mixing colors. At the same time he attended evening classes in the School of fine arts. In 1891 he entered At the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the official art school of France, where he was taught by Gustave Moreau and became his favorite student up to the point that when Moreau died in 1898 he was nominated the corator of the Moreau Museum in Paris.
Rouault's symbolism in the use of his colors for his first works was probably due to Moreau's influence.
Early works
Rouault also met Henri Matisse, Albert Marquet, Henri Charles Manguin, and Charles Camoin. These friendships brought him to the movement of Fauvism, the leader of which Matisse was known as.
From 1895 on, he took part in major public exhibitions, in special in the Salon d’Automne, where largely paintings with religious sujet, landscapes, and still lifes were shown. In 1905 he exhibited his paintings at the Salon d’Automne with the other Fauvists. While Matisse represented the reflective and rationalized aspects in the group, Rouault embodied a more spontaneous and instinctive style.
His use of stark contrasts and emotionality is credited to the influence of Vincent van Gogh. His characterizations of overemphasized grotesque personalities inspire expressionist painters.
Espressionist works
Since 1907 Rouault drew a series of paintings dedicated to courts, clowns, and prostitutes. These paintings are interpreted as moral and social criticism. He become attracted to spiritualism and the drammatic existentialism of the philosopher Jacques Maritain, who stayed a close friend for the rest of his life. After that, he dedicated himself to religious sujets. In the center of his interest was always the human nature. Rouault expressed: "A tree against the sky possesses the same interest, the same character, the same expression as the figure of a human."
In 1910, Rouault had his first works exhibited in the Druet Gallery. His works were studied by German artists from Dresden, who formed the nucleus of later espressionism.
Since 1917 Rouault dedicated himself to printing. He searched for inspirations in religious sujets, first of all, in the theme of the passion of Christ: the face of Jesus and the cries of the women to the feet of the cross are symbol of the pain of the world, relieved though through the belief in resurrection.
Since 1930 he began to exhibit also in foreign countries, mostly in in London, New York, and Chicago.
He showed his cycle Misery in 1948.
At the end of his life he burned 300 of his pictures (estimated to be worth today about more than half a billion francs). Rouault died in Paris 1958.