Eugene Giraud

EUGENE GIRAUD (Paris, 1806-1881).
"Painting a plein air".
Oil on panel.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 24 x 14 cm; 45 x 36 cm.

Eugène Giraud offers us a self-portrait in which he appears painting a plein air or "in the open air", a characteristic practice of the artists of the XIX century that consisted of working directly in the nature to capture immediately the light, the color and the atmosphere of the landscape. This method, favored by advances such as portable paint tubes and the development of the railroad, profoundly transformed modern painting. Its origins are to be found in the Barbizon School in France, whose artists sought to represent the landscape with greater naturalness and sensitivity, and it reached its maximum expression with the Impressionists - among them Monet, Renoir and Pissarro - who used rapid brushstrokes, luminous colors and everyday scenes to reflect the fleeting changes of light and atmosphere, thus opening the way to the avant-garde of the 20th century.

Eugène Giraud was a French painter, draughtsman and lithographer linked to Romanticism and Orientalism in the 19th century. A disciple of Eugène Delacroix, he was noted for his scenes inspired by the Orient and North Africa, as well as for his portraits and drawings of Parisian artistic life. His work reflects the European interest in exoticism and oriental cultures, very present in the art of the time.