Jules Dupré Quotes

Jules Dupré was a French painter, one of the chief members of the Barbizon school of landscape painters. If Corot stands for the lyric and Rousseau for the epic aspect of the poetry of nature, Dupré is the exponent of his tragic and dramatic aspects.Dupré was born in Nantes. He exhibited first at the Salon in 1831, and three years later was awarded a second-class medal. In the same year he came to England, where he was impressed by the genius of Constable. From then on he learned how to express movement in nature; and the districts around Southampton and Plymouth, with its wide, unbroken expanses of water, sky and ground, gave him good opportunities for studying the tempestuous motion of storm-clouds and the movement of foliage driven by the wind. He was named an Officer of the French Légion d'honneur in 1848. His daughter Therese-Marthe-Francoise also became a painter.



Dupré's colour is sonorous and resonant. He showed preference for using dramatic sunset effects and stormy skies and seas as the subjects of his paintings. Late in life he changed his style and gained appreciably in largeness of handling and arrived at greater simplicity in his colour harmonies. Among his chief works are the Morning and Evening at the Louvre, and the early Crossing the Bridge in the Wallace Collection.

✵ 5. April 1811 – 6. October 1889
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Famous Jules Dupré Quotes

“It will be hard to fill the place of the painter [ Corot ]; it will be impossible to fill the place of the man.”

Quote of Dupré in 1875; as quoted by Albert Wolff, 1880's, in Notes upon certain masters of the XIX century, - printed not published MDCCCLXXXVI (1886), The Art Age Press, 400 N.Y. (written after the exhibition 'Cent Chefs-d'Oeuvres: the Choice of the French Private Galleries', Petit, Paris / Baschet, New York, 1883, p. 16
When Corot died in 1875, Jules Dupré spoke these short words about his friend

“You think then, that I know my profession? Why, my poor fellow; if I had nothing more to find out and to learn I could not paint any longer.”

as quoted by Albert Wolff, 1880's, in Notes upon certain masters of the XIX century, - printed not published MDCCCLXXXVI (1880's), The Art Age Press, 400 N.Y. (written after the exhibition 'Cent Chefs-d'Oeuvres: the Choiche of the French Private Galleries', Petit, Paris / Baschet, New York, 1883, p. 36
Dupré is responding in this quote to a purchaser who was teasing him to finish a picture only in a few hours. Dupré replied in the presence of Albert Wolff

“To have that under one's eyes and not paint it is stupid.”

Dupré, quoted by Albert Wolff, 1880's, Notes upon certain masters of the XIX century, - printed not published MDCCCLXXXVI (1886), The Art Age Press, 400 N.Y. (written after the exhibition 'Cent Chefs-d'Oeuvres: the Choice of the French Private Galleries', Petit, Paris / Baschet, New York, 1883, p. 35
Jules Dupré was passing some Summer-weeks at Cayeux-sur-Mer, looking out on the sea from his window. From this day he transformed in a painter of marines; according to Wolff

“What man touches, he can become master of, but to paint that sky [French Riviera] without clouds, that well of light, is as hopeless a task as it would be to sound its depths.”

Quote of Dupré, c 1844-45; as cited by Charles Sprague Smith, in Barbizon days, Millet-Corot-Rousseau-Barye publisher, A. Wessels Company, New York, July 1902, p. 164
Together, Dupré and Theodore Rousseau struggled in vain for five months of 1844 with the constant fathomless azure blue of the southern sky

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