Nude - Paul Désiré Trouillebert (1829-1900)

Paul Désiré Trouillebert 1829-1900

He is best known today as a landscape painter in the spirit of Corot and the Barbizon School.

A pupil of Ernest Hébert and Charles-François Jalabert, he studied at the Beaux-arts de Paris.

However, Trouillebert was first noticed by critics and collectors early in his career for his nudes and portraits.
He made his debut at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1865, where he exhibited regularly.

Our work can be found in the artist's catalog raisonné under reference 0084.

For the discerning viewer, the subject will not have escaped them. A beautiful tragic story as only the Greeks know how: the myth of Danaides. Numerous 19th-century artists, such as the Englishman John Waterhouse and the Frenchmen William Bouguereau and Tony Robert Fleury, have depicted the Danaids.

The Danaids are the 50 daughters of King Danaos. To avoid a war of succession, Danaos agrees to unite his daughters with his brother's sons, also fifty in number.
But an oracle reveals the men's true intention: to kill the Danaids after their marriage. That evening, fearing the prediction, Danaos orders his daughters to kill their husbands.
Precipitated into Tartarus, a region of the Underworld, they are condemned to fill jars (often pierced) for eternity, to fill a pierced well.

Tartarus is described as an arid, misty, black place, with lakes of sulfur, mountainous and rocky, creating a suffocating atmosphere from which no one can escape.

Trouillebert conveys this atmosphere perfectly, notably through his choice of colors: blue, violet and brown. The topography also suggests a lake close to the young woman's outstretched body, and the red touches on the left are reminiscent of flames like wildfire.

The bodies of the Danaïdes are very sketchy, but no less remarkable for that. The artist chose a different pose for each one.
The Danaïde leaning on the barrel refers to Ariane, presented at the 1883 Salon (see cat. no. 0082).
Nu allongé de dos (see cat. no. 0129), a figure close to Rodin's nude.
In this figure, we are at the height of despair at the futility of the task at hand.

The artist also offers his viewers a highly sensual scene, with women in almost erotic positions.