Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805)
Jean-Baptiste Greuze was born in the Burgundy, France. He spent most of his career in Paris. Gradually his work attracted the attention of members of the nobility such as the family of Madame d'Epinay, a French writer whose love affairs included Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Denis Diderot. In 1755, Greuze's painting, Father Reading the Bible, was judged accomplished enough to merit much encouragement from Academicians. That same year, he went to Italy with Abbé Louis Gougenot, who had influence among fine art professionals, which led to Greuze being elected him an honorary member of the Royal Academy in Italy because of his accomplishments in allegory and mythology.
Beginning in the late 1850s, he received increasing accolades for his painting, which influenced by Rousseau, was getting increasingly naturalistic. By 1765, he had reached a great high point with the exhibition of thirteen paintings at the Academy's Salon in Paris. However, members gave him a tough time because they demanded that he show them a diploma from an accredited art institution, something he did not have. The Academy finally received him as a new member with all honours but as a genre painter, meaning he was not officially recognized for his portraits or history canvases.
Greuze left many paintings, many which are in the Louvre as well as the Wallace Collection in London, the Musée Fabre in Montpellier and a museum dedicated to him in his hometown of Tournus.
Sources include:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Greuze Normand, J. B. Greuze (1892)
Emma Barker, Greuze and the Painting of Sentiment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
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