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Pierre Puvis de Chavannes prints bring the calm, pale colour and stillness of France's great mural painter into your home. Known as "the painter for France", Puvis decorated the Panthéon, the Sorbonne and Paris City Hall, and his simple, dreamlike style influenced a whole generation of Symbolist and modern artists. Our collection of fine art prints covers his paintings, mural studies, figure drawings and caricatures.

About Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

Pierre-Cécile Puvis was born near Lyon on 14 December 1824, the son of a mining engineer from an old Burgundian family; he later added the ancestral "de Chavannes" to his name. He meant to follow his father's profession, but a serious illness and a journey to Italy changed his mind, and in 1846 he announced he would become a painter. He studied very briefly with Eugène Delacroix, then with Henri Scheffer and Thomas Couture, but preferred to work alone. He made his Salon debut in 1850.

His first murals decorated his brother's château, and in the early 1860s he received his first public commissions, for the Musée de Picardie in Amiens. Commissions followed in Marseille, Lyon and Poitiers, and in Paris he painted the life of Saint Genevieve in the Panthéon from 1874, the great hemicycle The Sacred Grove at the Sorbonne, and Summer and Winter for the Hôtel de Ville. His ability to please many political viewpoints at once made him the favoured muralist of the early Third Republic.

In 1890 he co-founded the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and became its president. He had an affair with his model Suzanne Valadon, later a painter herself. He died in Paris on 24 October 1898.

Style and Subjects

Puvis's paintings are calm, simplified and pale. Figures stand or recline in quiet, dreamlike landscapes, painted in soft chalky blues, greens, ochres and greys that echo the look of old frescoes. Compositions are carefully balanced and often recall classical Greece.

Although he never joined a movement, his work is seen as Symbolist, and his flat colour and simplified forms inspired younger artists from Gauguin's circle to the Nabis, and painters such as Ludwig von Hofmann. Émile Zola called his work "an art made of reason, passion and will".

Famous Works

• The Turtle Seller in Venice (1854), Musée d'Orsay, Paris. An early genre picture from his Italian memories.
• Sleep (1867), Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille. Travellers resting under a moonlit sky, a large early mural-style painting.
• Hope (1872), Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. An allegory of hope, which he painted in two versions in 1871–72.
• Young Girls by the Seaside (1879), Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Three women by the shore in quiet, pale colour.
• The Poor Fisherman (1881), Musée d'Orsay, Paris. A fisherman in his boat with his children on the bank, one of his most famous works.
• Ludus pro Patria (c. 1883), Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Young men at patriotic games in a broad landscape.
• The Sacred Grove, Beloved of the Arts and the Muses (1884–86), Art Institute of Chicago. A version of the composition he painted for the staircase of the Lyon museum.
• Inter Artes et Naturam (1890), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Figures gathered between art and nature in a calm landscape.

Decorating with Puvis de Chavannes Prints

Puvis's soft, pale palette makes his work easy to live with. The Poor Fisherman or Young Girls by the Seaside suits a calm bedroom, bathroom or reading room, and works well with white walls, linen and natural wood.

Larger compositions like The Sacred Grove bring a gentle, classical mood to a living room or dining room, and his figure drawings and studies make a quiet, elegant grouping in a hallway or study.

FAQ

What art movement was Puvis de Chavannes part of?

His work is generally seen as Symbolist, though he worked independently. His simplified forms and flat colour influenced many later painters, including Gauguin, the Nabis and early modernists.

Why was Puvis called "the painter for France"?

He painted many of the great public murals of the early Third Republic, including the Panthéon, the Sorbonne and the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, and museums in Amiens, Lyon and Marseille.

What is Puvis de Chavannes's most famous painting?

The Poor Fisherman (1881), now in the Musée d'Orsay, is his best-known easel painting. His murals of Saint Genevieve in the Panthéon and The Sacred Grove are his most famous decorative works.

Where can I see his murals?

In Paris at the Panthéon, the Sorbonne and the Hôtel de Ville; in the Musée de Picardie in Amiens; and in the Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon. Related easel paintings are in the Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Related Artists

• Ludwig von Hofmann: German painter who best carried on his spirit, according to Wikipedia
• Suzanne Valadon: his model, later an important painter herself
• Thomas Couture: one of his teachers in Paris
• Eugène Delacroix: his first, very brief teacher
• Georges de Feure: one of his protégés