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Valet de Chambre from a series of etchings of trades, Les Metiers 1635
Valet de Chambre from a series of etchings of trades, Les Metiers 1635

Abraham Bosse (c. 1602-1604[1] – February 14, 1676) was a French artist, mainly as a printmaker in etching, but also in watercolour. Events 842 - Charles the Bald and Louis the German swear the Oaths of Strasbourg in the French and German For practical purposes the history of French art has been divided into a series of separate articles accessible through the template to the right Printmaking is the Process of making artworks by Printing, normally on Paper. For other uses of etch or etching, see Etching (disambiguation, for the history of the method see Old master prints. Watercolor ( US) or Watercolour ( UK) (and "aquarelle" in French is a Painting method

Contents

Life

He was born to Huguenot (Calvinist) parents in Tours, France, where his father had moved from Germany. The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France (or French Calvinists) from the sixteenth to the eighteenth Calvinism (sometimes called the Reformed tradition, the Reformed faith, or Reformed theology) is a theological system and an approach to the Tours is a city in France the Préfecture (capital city of the Indre-et-Loire département, on the lower reaches of the river His father was a tailor, and Bosse's work always depicted clothes in loving detail [2]. He married Catherine Sarrabat at Tours in 1632. He remained a Huguenot, dying before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, but was happy to illustrate religious subjects to Catholic taste [3]. The Edict of Fontainebleau (October 1685 was an Edict issued by Louis XIV of France, also known as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes of

Work

Roughly 1600 etchings are attributed to him, with subjects including: daily life [4], religion[5], literature [6], history[7], fashion[8], technology[9], and science[10]. Most of his output was illustrations for books, but many were also sold separately. His style grows from Dutch and Flemish art, but is given a strongly French flavour. Dutch art describes the history of Visual arts in the Netherlands, after the United Provinces separated from Flanders. Flemish painting flourished from the early 15th century until the 17th century Many of his images give fascinating and informative detail about middle and upper-class daily life in the period, although they must be treated with care as historical evidence [11]. His combination of very carefully depicted grand interiors with relatively trivial domestic subjects [12] was original and highly influential on French art, and also abroad — William Hogarth's engravings are, among other things, a parody of the style. William Hogarth (10 November 1697 &ndash 26 October 1764 was a major English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic Most of his images are perhaps best regarded as illustrations rather than art.

Watercolour of a ball by Abraham Bosse, a similar subject to many of his most famous etchings
Watercolour of a ball by Abraham Bosse, a similar subject to many of his most famous etchings

He was apprenticed in Paris about 1620 to the Antwerp-born engraver Melchior Tavernier (1564–1641), who was also an important publisher. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city ||-||-||-||} Antwerp ( Dutch:, French: Anvers) is a City and Municipality in Belgium and the capital of the His first etchings date to 1622, and are influenced by Jacques Bellange. Jacques Bellange (c 1575 place unknown - 1616 was an artist and Printmaker from Lorraine, now in France, whose Etchings and some Following a meeting in Paris about 1630, he became a follower of Jacques Callot, whose technical innovations in etching he popularised in a famous and much translated Manual of Etching(1645), the first to be published [13]. Jacques Callot (c 1592 - 1635 was a Baroque Printmaker and draftsman from the Duchy of Lorraine (an independent state on the North-Eastern He took Callot's highly detailed small images to a larger size, and a wider range of subject matter.

Unlike Callot, his declared aim, in which he largely succeeded, was to make etchings look like engravings, to which end he sacrificed willingly the freedom of the etched line, whilst certainly exploiting to the full the speed of the technique. Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it Like most etchers, he frequently used engraving on a plate in addition to etching, but produced no pure engravings.

Controversy

In 1641 he began to attend classes given by the architect Girard Desargues (1591–1661) on perspective and other technical aspects of depiction. Girard Desargues ( February 21 or March 2, 1591 -October 1661 was a French Mathematician and engineer who is considered one of Bosse not only adopted these methods but also published a series of works between 1643–1653 explaining and promoting them [14].

In 1648, when Mazarin established the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, Bosse was made a founding member. Jules Mazarin, born Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino ( July 14 1602 &ndash March 9 1661) was an accomplished French statesman The Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture (Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture Paris, was founded in 1648, modelled on Italian examples such However his publicising of Desargues' methods embroiled him in a controversy with Charles Le Brun and his followers who had different methods, and also a belief that "genius" rather than technical method should be the guide in creating artworks. Charles Le Brun (24 February 1619 - 22 February 1690 was a French painter and art theorist, one of the dominant artists in 17th century France. In 1661 Bosse was forced to withdraw from the Academy; he established his own school as an alternative.

Major works

Etchings & Images

Frontispiece for Hobbes' Leviathan.
Frontispiece for Hobbes' Leviathan.

Later Collections


References

Notes

  1. ^ Based on recent research, his date of birth is closer to 1603 than the traditionally given birth year of 1602. Bosse's apprenticeship contract was found in which it is mentioned that he was aged 16 at the date of signing the contract (June 16, 1620). Events 1487 - Battle of Stoke Field, the last dying breath of the Wars of the Roses. [1]

External links

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