Moonlit lake by Paul COSTES

Paul COSTES 1860-1941
a contemporary of Laugé and Henri Martin, never left Toulouse.
The critic Pascal Franck described him as "the painter of melancholy evenings, the dreamer in love with calm and the sad hour when the clouds are gilded with the reflections of the vanished sun".

The artists of the nationally and internationally renowned Toulouse School made Toulouse famous during this period.

Among them were Prix de Rome laureates such as sculptors Alexandre Falguière and Antonin Mercié, landscape artists Paul Costes and Georges Castex, city view and landscape painter Henri Martin, orientalist Benjamin-Constant and history painter Jean-Paul Laurens.

All trained at the city's École des Beaux-Arts, they continued their studies in Paris, where they followed the academic tradition promoted by the Salon des Artistes Français.

As for their style, it borrowed from the Symbolists and Neo-Impressionists.