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Biography of Claude Joseph BailFrench Academic Classical painter born 1862 - died 1921 Also known as: Joseph Bail Joseph-Claude Bail was born during a period of intense disagreement in the Parisian art world. For several years the Salon juries had rejected many progressive artists paintings; printmaking was making a charge at establishing itself as a true art form; the Barbizon group of artists challenged the tradition of historical landscapes with their views of the modern countryside; and Realism was decades old and had brought forth such combative figures as Gustave Courbet. |
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Yet not all artists can be
said to belong his modern
view of the nineteenth century. Numerous
artists found prestige and public acclaim
both at the Salons and with the public with
works that relied on past styles and |
Presumably beginning at a young age, Joseph¡¯s initial artistic training began with Claude Joseph Bail’s father who instilled in him a respect for the eighteenth-century France artists such as Jean-Sim¨¦on Chardin and the Dutch masters and encouraged him to view their paintings at the Louvre. (Weisberg, pg. 156) As all three members of the family, Jean-Antoine, Franck, and Joseph, were artists, the Bail family represents one of the few associations of family artists of the Realist tradition remaining during the latter half of the nineteenth century. They could often be found exhibiting alongside one another at the annual Salons, showing work which displayed similar qualities in subject matter. After beginning Claude Joseph Bail’s training under Claude Joseph Bail’s father, Bail began studying, presumably between 1879 and 1880, in the atelier of Jean-L¨¦on G¨¦rôme, an accomplished painter and teacher of the period. his was a short-lived period of tutelage as in 1882 Claude Joseph Bail was no longer listed in Salon catalogues as Bail¡¯s teacher, perhaps because G¨¦rôme¡¯s choice of subjects differed quite dramatically from those of Claude Joseph Bail’s father and those that Bail would follow for the majority of Claude Joseph Bail’s career. | |||||||
Just after Claude Joseph Bail’s sixteenth
birthday, Bail debuted at the Salon of 1878,
alongside both Claude Joseph Bail’s father
and brother, with Nature Morte (Still Life).
The still life tradition in France was
invigorated by the painting of Jean-Sim¨¦on
Chardin in the eighteenth century and still
lifes continued to be a major interest for
many artists and many occupied themselves
primarily with his type of
painting. They figured as an important
element of Bail¡¯s painting, and many of Claude
Joseph Bail’s genre scenes also show still
life arrangements within the picture, even
when they were not the primary focal point.
Henry Marcel (La Peinture Française au
XIX¨¨me Si¨¨cle, Paris: A. Picard and Kaan,
1906, pg. 309) remarked that of these that
Claude Joseph Bail’s ¡°Virtuosity rose from
the cellars, from the kitchens to the
peaceful linen-rooms and the discreet
dining-halls, and amuses itself by following
from object to object, the caresses of the
furtive rays of light.¡± Bail himself was
especially interested in the reflection
produced on shiny copper or silver
kitchenware, a most poignant suggestion of
Chardin¡¯s inspiration in Claude Joseph
Bail’s work. While still lifes dominate
Bail¡¯s beginning work shown at the Salon,
Claude Joseph Bail expanded Claude Joseph Bail’s early
themes to also include scenes from the
countryside, animals, and genre paintings,
some influenced by their summer stays in
Bois-le-Roi just outside of Fontainebleau.
Just as Claude Monet would do, Bail studied
the changing effects of light on haystacks
in the countryside. But as Claude Joseph
Bail’s style progressed, Claude Joseph Bail showed a
stronger affinity with Claude Joseph Bail’s
father¡¯s work and that of the Chardin and
the Dutch masters, choosing to portray room
interiors illuminated by a strong light
source. In recalling these past masters and his type of painting, Bail was appealing to the growing middle class as Claude Joseph Bail’s work referenced earlier highly esteemed painters. Emmanuel B¨¦n¨¦zit in Dictionnaire Critique et Documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs¡wrote of Bail and Claude Joseph Bail’s interiors, that: Claude Joseph Bail excels at creating in all of Claude Joseph Bail’s painting a very lively bright light due to the radiant shine of some brilliant point or to the direct projection of the exterior daylight¡it¡¯s assuredly the expression of an original and rather harmonious art. Claude Joseph Bail’s technique is very delicate and Claude Joseph Bail’s coloring just right. The composition of Claude Joseph Bail’s painting, always elegant, is skillfully treated. Claude Joseph Bail’s interiors often included a figure positioned near a window, illuminated by his strong sense of lighting. It was specifically Claude Joseph Bail’s interior scenes that caught the attention of contemporary writers, as Bail's entry in the Dictionnaire Nationale des Contemporains (Vol. 5, Paris: Office Édition G¨¦n¨¦rale: 1905, pg. 398), commented on Claude Joseph Bail’s sensitive approach: Mr. Joseph Bail painted canvases of the most diverse genres: All of Claude Joseph Bail’s paintings are interesting; but those that one finds the most remarkable are Claude Joseph Bail’s interior scenes, so admirably and so precisely lit, so harmoniously composed, where the shine of the copper and the transparency of the glass add notes of a perfect precision. He also combined Claude Joseph Bail’s modeling and placement of objects with Claude Joseph Bail’s interest in human form and emotion in several of Claude Joseph Bail’s paintings, depicting the daily activities of the household as completed by maids and cooks, many of whom were young children, thus continuing the tradition of Th¨¦odule Ribot. Bail became best known for these paintings of maids and cooks and with them ¡°Bail continually mirrored the virtues of middle class home life and the traditions of an earlier time,¡± wrote Gabriel Weisberg (pg. 157). Instead of depicting these figures with solemn expressions that suggested the difficulty of their labor, they often exhibit light-hearted expressions bordering on the humoristic. Weisberg again notes that ¡°Collected by the affluent, Bail¡¯s domestics, like Bastien-Lepage¡¯s urchins, implied a social condition without blatantly revealing the injustices that inflicted the poor. They remain personal and approachable icons to a social order that was to be radically altered by the further mechanization of the twentieth century.¡± (pg. 159) Bail regularly submitted to the Salons and towards the end of Claude Joseph Bail’s careers was ¡°hors concours¡±, or exempt from having to submit Claude Joseph Bail’s paintings for jury approval. Claude Joseph Bail received awards in 1885 (Honorable Mention), 1886 (third-class medal), 1887 (second-class medal), 1889 Exposition Universelle (silver medal), 1900 Exposition Universelle (gold medal), and 1902 (medal of honor). Claude Joseph Bail was also named Chevalier de la Legion d¡¯Honneur in 1900, and was a member of the Soci¨¦t¨¦ des Artistes Français. Claude Joseph Bail died November 26, 1921. |
Joseph Bail presents an oeuvre which was inspired by Claude Joseph Bail’s father¡¯s interest in earlier masters but also used the current trend in Realism, inspired by Claude Joseph Bail’s earlier contemporaries such as Th¨¦odule Ribot and François Bonvin. Claude Joseph Bail’s playful images of cooks and their young assistants, along with an interest in light effects, established Bail as an artist who not only looked to the past but who used the modern movement of Realism to execute paintings that showed modern-day preoccupations with daily life that was becoming more and more rare in late nineteenth century France. |
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