O.Wilde, Preface to 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. (...)
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. (...)

No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. (...)
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself...


O. Wilde (1854-1900),
Preface to 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'


Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Jean Béraud



Jean Béraud was a French painter who became famous for his paintings concerning daily life in Paris during the Belle Époque. Throughout his life his style gradually shifted from academic to impressionism. 


He was born in Saint Petersburg on January 12, 1849. His father was a sculptor who died when Jean was a boy. Following his death, the family moved to Paris.

There he met the famous painter Léon Bonnat (1833-1922) and began his career as a painter, too. His first exhibition was in 1872. 

He became famous in 1876 thanks to his painting On the Way Back from the Funeral. In 1889 he exhibited with the Society of French Watercolorists at the World’s Fair in Paris. He received the Légion d’Honneur in 1894.


Jean Béraud died in Paris on October 4, 1935 at the age of 86. He is buried in Montparnasse Cemetery beside his mother. 

On the Way Back From the Funeral, 1876

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