Constant Troyon | The Barbizon school of painters

Constant Troyon (Sèvres August 28, 1810 – February 21, 1865), French painter, was born in Sèvres, near Paris, where his father was connected with the famous manufactory of porcelain.
Troyon was an animal painter of the first rank, and was closely associated with the artists who painted around Barbizon. The technical qualities of his methods of painting are most masterly; his drawing is excellent, and his composition always interesting. It was only comparatively late in life that Troyon found his métier, but when he realized his power of painting animals he produced a fairly large number of good pictures in a few years.

Troyon entered the ateliers very young as a decorator, and until he was twenty he labored assiduously at the minute details of porcelain ornamentation; and this kind of work he mastered so thoroughly that it was many years before he overcame its limitations. By the time he reached twenty-one he was travelling the country as an artist, and painting landscapes so long as his finances lasted. Then when pressed for money he made friends with the first china manufacturer he met and worked steadily at his old business of decorator until he had accumulated enough funds to permit him to start again on his wanderings.

Troyon was a favorite with Camille Roqueplan, an artist of distinction eight years his senior, and he became one of his pupils after receiving certain tuition from a painter, now quite unknown, named Alfred Riocreux. Roqueplan introduced Troyon to Rousseau, Jules Dupré, and the other Barbizon painters, and in his pictures between 1840 and 1847 he seemed to endeavour to follow in their footsteps. But as a landscapist Troyon would never have been recognized as a thorough master, although his work of the period is marked with much sincerity and met with a certain success. It may be pointed out, however, that in one or two pure landscapes of the end of his life he achieved qualities of the highest artistic kind; but this was after lengthy experience as a cattle painter, by which his talents had become thoroughly developed.

In 1846 Troyon went to the Netherlands, and at the Hague saw Paulus Potter's famous "Young Bull". From the studies he made of this picture, of Cuyp's sunny landscapes, and Rembrandt's noble masterpieces he soon evolved a new method of painting, and it is only in works produced after this time that Troyon's true individuality is revealed. When he became conscious of his power as an animal painter he developed with rapidity and success, until his works became recognized as masterpieces in Britain and America, as well as in all countries of the Continent.
Success, however, came too late, for Troyon never quite believed in it himself, and even when he could command the market of several countries he still grumbled loudly at the way the world treated him. Yet he was decorated with the Legion of Honour, and five times received medals at the Paris Salon, while Napoleon III was one of his patrons; and it is certain he was at least as financially successful as his Barbizon colleagues.

Troyon died, unmarried, at Paris on 21 February 1865, after a term of clouded intellect. All his famous pictures are of date between 1850 and 1864, his earlier work being of comparatively little value. His mother, who survived him, instituted the Troyon prize for animal pictures at the École des Beaux Arts. Troyon's work is fairly well known to the public through a number of large engravings from his pictures. In the Wallace Gallery in London are "Watering Cattle" and "Cattle in Stormy Weather"; in the Glasgow Corporation Gallery is a "Landscape with Cattle"; the Louvre contains his famous "Oxen at Work" and "Returning to the Farm"; while the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other galleries in America contain fine examples of his pictures. His "Vallée de la Toucque, Normandy", is one of his greatest pictures; and at Christie's sale-room in 1902 the single figure of a cow in a landscape of but moderate quality fetched £7350. Émile van Marcke (1827–1891) was his best-known pupil.
Constant Troyon died in 1865 and was buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre in the Montmartre Quarter of Paris. | © Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911) - Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

TROYON, Constant. - Pittore, nato a Sèvres il 28 agosto 1810, morto a Parigi il 20 marzo 1865. Figlio di un decoratore della manifattura di Sèvres, e desiderando entrarvi anch'egli come pittore di fiori, cominciò a dipingere bozzetti dal vero, prendendo gusto al paesaggio. Nel 1833 espose opere ispirate ai sobborghi in cui viveva: La Fête de Sèvres; Un coin du Parc de St.-Cloud, rivelandosi ancora legato alla maniera classica, pesante nelle ombre e analitico. I consigli di C. Roqueplan gli schiusero orizzonti più vasti; il Limousin e la Creuse l'ispirarono. Ne riportò diverse vedute, tra cui: Vues prises aux environs d'Argenton (1836) e Foire champêtre dans le Limousin, 1838. Nel 1841 si recava in Bretagna, dove si fece sempre più libero ed eseguì Tobie avec l'Ange. Ma la sua evoluzione fu definitiva quando, conosciuti Th. Rousseau e J. Dupré, entrò nella pleiade dei paesisti romantici, detta "scuola del 1830", e frequentò la foresta di Fontainebleau, culla del paesaggio francese moderno, nel quale aleggiava lo spirito del grande iniziatore Constable. L'opera sua si trasfigura, come attestano i quadri del 1844: Paysage dans la forêt; Dessous de forêt; Vue prise à Fontainebleau, 1845. Finalmente un viaggio nel Belgio e nell'Olanda completa la sua vocazione. Vi conosce gli animalisti, vi ammira A. Cuyp e Pol Potter, ma sopra tutti Rembrandt. Imparò allora a rappresentare natura e animali in intimo accordo. Nel 1849 espose il celebre Moulin, palesandovi l'influenza di Rembrandt. Col 1850 si dedicò alla rappresentazione di greggi e armenti nei campi. Non ebbe come i pittori dei Paesi Bassi il senso dell'atmosfera, ma assai vivo in lui fu l'affetto per gli animali che aiutano l'uomo nel suo lavoro. Ricordiamo: Boeufs se rendant au labour; Effet du matin, 1855; Le retour à la ferme; Le retour du marché; La vache Rousse, tutti al Louvre. L'esposizione universale del 1855 consacrò la sua fama. Le opere del Tr. sono nei musei del Louvre, di Lilla, di Amiens, di Montpellier e di Bordeaux. | di Andrée R. Schneider, © Treccani, Enciclopedia Italiana