Louis de Fourcaud

John Singer Sargent:
Portrait Louis de Fourcaud , 1884

Louis de Fourcaud , actually Louis de Boussès de Fourcaud , (born November 5, 1851 in Beaumarchés , Département Gers , † October 19, 1914 ibid) was a French journalist, art critic and writer.

Life

After finishing school, Fourcaud began studying at the Conservatoire de Paris ; u. a. he learned to play the cello there . Almost parallel to this, he became a student of the historian Jules Quicherat at the École nationale des chartes .

Following this, Fourcaud began to write for the feature pages of various newspapers and magazines. For these articles he often used pseudonyms such as "Lambert", "George" and "Junius"; He soon received the nickname "Salonard" (Salon Lion) from his colleagues. As an art critic he wrote for the magazine Le Gaulois until the end of his life . From 1879 on he also worked as a freelancer for the Revue wagnériènne and two years later he was also able to publish occasionally in the Clairon newspaper .

In June 1884 Fourcaud wrote his first article ("Le salon de 1884") in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts . In the same year, John Singer Sargent painted his portrait (now the Musée d'Orsay ). In 1891 he was appointed to the “Conseil supérieur des beaux-arts” and as such he succeeded Hippolyte Taine two years later as Professor of Aesthetics and Art History . For his life's work, the Académie des Beaux-Arts awarded Fourcaud honorary membership in 1913.

reception

In addition to the fine arts, which Fourcaud claims to focus on - French painting and sculpture of the 17th century - Fourcaud also dealt with the music of his time. Fourcaud is considered a Wagnerian from the very beginning . But the works of Hector Berlioz , César Franck , Charles François Gounod , Camille Saint-Saëns and Ambroise Thomas also interested him and he wrote about them.

Through his own literary work, modern literature was of great importance to Fourcaud. He was u. a. known with Émile Augier , Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly , Alexandre Dumas the Younger , Gustave Flaubert , Victor Hugo , Alfred de Musset and Émile Zola . The publisher Alphonse Lemerre became aware of him through his poems and invited him to work on the later famous anthology Le Parnasse contemporain . Today Fourcaud belongs to the circle of the literary association of the Parnassiens .

Works (selection)

• Alfred de Curzon , peintre (1820-1895). Sa vie, son œuvre . Laurens, Paris 1914 (2 vol.)
• Les artistes de toutes temps. Émile Gallé . Librairie de l'art ancien & modern, Paris 1903.
• Cours d'esthétique et d'histoire de l'art. Trois années, 60 leçons . Impr.nationale, Paris 1893.
• Evolution de la peinture au XIXe siècle . Impr. Nationale, Paris 1890.
• François Rude , sculptor. Ses œuvres et son temps . Librairie de l'art ancien & modern, Paris 1904.
• Hieronymus van Acken, dit Jérôme Bosch . Barnger, Paris 1912.
• Jean Siméon Chardin . Ollendorff, Paris 1900.
• Les maîtres modern. Bastien-Lepage , sa vie, ses œuvres . Baschet, Paris 1885.
• Les maîtres modern. Theodule Ribot , sa vie et ses œuvres . Baschet, Paris 1885.
• L'œuvre de Alfred Philippe Roll . Guérinet, Paris 1896.
• Revue de l'exposition universelle de 1889 . Motteroz, Paris 1889 (with François Guillaume Dumas )
• Richard Wagner . Les étapes de sa vie, de sa pensée et de son art . Hachette, Paris 1923 (posthumous)
• La Salle Pleyel . Impr.réunis, Paris 1893 (together with Arthur Pougin and Léon Pradel )

literature

• Henri de Curzon: Bibliography générale de l'œuvre de Louis de Fourcaud . Belles-Lettres, Paris 1926.
• Joël-Marie de Fauquet (ed.): Dictionnaire de la musique en France au XIXe siècle . Fayard, Paris 2003.
• Guillaume Morel: Louis Fourcaud, critique d'Art (1880-1900) . Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris 1998.
• Alphonse Lemerre: Le Parnasse contemporain .
• Michel Prevost et al. a. (Ed.): Dictionnaire de biographie française . Letouzey & Ané, Paris 1979.
• Samuel Rocheblave: Louis de Fourcaud et le mouvement artistique en France de 1875 à 1914 . Belles-Lettres, Paris 1926.

Web links

Wikisource: Louis de Fourcaud  - Sources and full texts (French)