Andrе Bauchant

A French self-taught artist nicknamed the Gardener due to his occupation, but more because of his love for still lifes and landscapes. He also painted historical landscapes, mythological narrative canvases and portraits.

Having started his career as a painter at the age of 46, A. Bauchant created around 3000 paintings in 30 years. His exhibitions were held in many European countries, in the USA and Japan. He was the only French self-taught artist awarded the title of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor for his creative work and military service. Large collections of his works are in major museums in France and Germany.

Key ideas:

– Andre Bauchant made painting his main occupation at the age of 45. He useful various kinds of base for his first works: cardboard and paper sheets, wood, table towels, tins and so on. Actively visiting museums and exhibitions, reading many books on mythology and history, the artist first took a great interest in painting specifically on biblical, historical and mythological subjects, but also created still lifes and landscapes, portraits and genre paintings. He liked to combine plots with the presence of a man with landscape views of forests, gardens and fields.

– Andre’s figures of people and animals were awkward, static-frozen in a half-motion, flat, but expressive at the same time. Art critics note (and an inexperienced viewer feels) the painter’s special poetic attitude towards the depicted objects. These qualities associate with medieval paintings and frescoes, especially since Bauchant is often close to Giotto in the color gamma. Specialists have repeatedly emphasized his special manner of using unglazed surfaces, as did the masters of Quattrocento frescoes.

– There are a lot of portraits in the heritage of Bauchant, from which there are at least a dozen images of himself, among the flowers and with his first wife. Interesting is a series of self-portraits, in which the artist is already a gray-haired, respectable gentleman. It is as if Bauchant studied nature, depicting himself in full face, half turned, his profile and back. These portraits are different from the rest of the work: striving to achieve similarity, the artist worked through the features of the whole look and achieved realism in the depiction, while transmitting the psychological state of a person.