The Elegant Realism of
Henri Fantin-Latour By Elaine Banks Stainton
Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904) studied painting as a boy with his father, an artist who had been a follower of the neoclassical master Jacques Louis David. In the early 1850s he continued his studies in Paris at the Ecole de Dessin and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Like most art students at this time he spent long hours in the Louvre copying the compositions and techniques of the old masters on view there. On these excursions he met Édouard Manet, Berthe Morisot and James McNeill Whistler, all of whom became personal friends. Whistler would later introduce Fantin-Latour’s still lifes to collectors in England, which became an important market for his work. Although Fantin-Latour’s coming of age as a painter took place during the heyday of French Realism, he had no interest in the
rough-hewn world of stone-breakers and ploughmen. Instead, his “realism” was one of polished urbanity – of porcelain tea cups, lavish fabrics, and cut flowers. He emphasized the tactile qualities of his exquisite still lifes and portraits by setting them against smooth, monochromatic backgrounds, the tonalities of which he balanced harmoniously with the colors of his subjects. Fantin-Latour’s fascination for detail grew out of the tradition of precise description of objects that had been a current in European art since the 15th century. His virtuosity in depicting the sparkling surfaces of glass and porcelain and the softer forms of flowers and fabric epitomized much of his work throughout his life. 13
