Jules Jacques Veyrassat

JULES JACQUES VEYRASSAT (Paris, 1828-1893).
"Loading hay".
Pair of oils on canvas.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 63 x 50 cm (each); 72 x 60 cm (frames).

This pair of paintings is a magnificent example of the rural and naturalistic art of Jules Jacques Veyrassat, an outstanding member of the Barbizon School. In them, the artist represents with serenity and balance an everyday scene of the French countryside: wagons full of hay next to haystacks, while peasants and horses participate in the agricultural work under a clear and luminous sky.

Veyrassat achieves an admirable sense of harmony between the human figure, the animal and the landscape, without hierarchies, as part of the same natural order. The toasted color of the hay, in dialogue with the attenuated greens and earthy ochers, conveys the warmth of the summer season and the nobility of peasant work. The geometric forms (the cones of the haystacks and the regular volumes of the wagons) introduce a compositional rhythm that reinforces the sensation of calm and stability.

The brushstroke, soft and controlled, reveals the painter's academic training, but also his closeness to the direct observation of nature, inherited from the plein-air of Barbizon.

Jules Jacques Veyrassat was a French painter and writer who belonged to the Barbizon School. He made his first studies in Paris in the studio of Henri Lehmann. In 1848, Veyrassat exhibited his first works at the Paris Salon. Although he was recognized for his pictorial work, especially for his landscape painting, in 1860 he began to work as a writer; he added to his writings some engravings of his own authorship, a technique he learned from Faustin Besson. Between 1866 and 1869 his engravings won several prizes that gave him great prestige. After this, the British academic Philip Gilbert Hamerton asked for his collaboration for some of his books on the art of engraving, in which he participated in different years, such as Chapters of Animals (1874); Etching and Etchers (1880). In 1872 Veyrassat was awarded a medal for his painting and in 1878 he was awarded the title of Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur.