Henri Fantin-Latour, Pt. 4

Fantin-Latour's portrait of "Édouard Manet"
in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago

 "Perhaps because Henri Fantin-Latour was still undergoing so many formative creative experiences, he remained very unsure of his own direction as an artist. He made the experiment of studying for a month at Courbet's 'School of Realism' in the latter's studio in rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, but did not like it and left."

"Hals inspired Fantin's 'Homage to Delacroix,' a group portrait. Plus Manet was much in Fantin's mind at this period. The two of them belonged to a group which also included Baudelaire, Bazille, Renoir, Edmond Maitre and the politician Gambetta."  

"Homage to Delacroix" by Fantin-Latour. At the centre of the
composition is a 'picture within a picture' - the portrait
of Delacroix himself. Around him are grouped the young
or youngish admirers of this genius who represented a
romanticism whose force was now nearly spent:
Whistler, Fantin himself, the critic Duranty, the painters
Alphonse Legros and Louis Cordier, then Campfleury,
Baudelaire, Manet, Bracquemond and the painter Albert de Balleroy.

From 1866 onwards Fantin was often to be seen at the Cafe Guerbois where those who were afterwards to be dubbed Impressionists gathered and where Manet was very much the focus of attention. In 1867 Fantin created a sensation at the Salon, and raised his own reputation to a new plane, by showing his elegantly combative portrait of Manet, which was admired even by those who detested both what the subject stood for, and the fashion in which he painted."

"The immediate result was a small mis-step in Fantin's own career. The picture brought him the commission for a massive family group of the aristocratic Fitz-James family, but he found he had bitten off more than he could chew and was unable to complete it."
 

To be continued...

(Excerpts are from "Henri Fantin-Latour" by Edward Lucie-Smith.)