Jules Adolphe Aimé Louis Breton
Born in Courrières, Pas-de-Calais, France on 1 May 1827.
Died in Paris (France) on 5 July 1906.
French · Realism · rural scenes combining realism and idealisation
Jules Adolphe Aimé Louis Breton (Courrières, 1 May 1827 – Paris, 5 July 1906) was a French painter and poet. He studied at the Academy of Ghent and at the École des beaux-Arts in Paris, and was a pupil of Félix de Vigne, Gustave Wappers, and Michel-Martin Drolling. He exhibited at the Salon from 1848, chiefly landscapes, and was active in Geneva, Antwerp, and Paris.
Born into a rural family in Pas-de-Calais, he devoted much of his work to scenes of peasant life. His visual language, associated with Realism and influenced by Jean-François Millet and Gustave Courbet, developed towards idealised images of rural life, with orderly compositions and golden light. He was elected to the Académie des beaux-arts on 20 March 1886.
Breton’s works are held, among other institutions, by the Musée d’Orsay, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.
The works by Jules Adolphe Aimé Louis Breton presented by Swiss Art Gallery extend this artistic journey and take their place naturally within this corpus.
