Constant Troyon Cattle Grazing in Touraine 1854 - 1857

Biography

Born 1810
Died 1865
Nationality French
Birth place Sèvres
Death place Paris

While training to become a ceramic painter in his native Sèvres, Troyon spent his spare time studying landscape painting. He particularly admired the seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael. In the early 1830s, Troyon formed friendships with artists Théodore Rousseau and Jules Dupré, who proved to be very influential. Throughout the 1840s they worked together at Barbizon in the forest of Fontainebleau, aiming for greater naturalism in their painting. In 1847, Troyon visited Holland, where he was struck by the animal paintings of Paulus Potter and Aelbert Cuyp. This visit marked a shift in his work, and thereafter animals became his central interest. Troyon became one of Europe's most prominent artists, and his late paintings of the Normandy coast influenced the Impressionists.

Glossary terms

Glossary terms

Barbizon School

The Barbizon School were an informal group of artists who were active between about 1830-1870. They would gather to paint in the forest of Fontainebleau near the village of Barbizon, a name which later historians used to refer to them.