Narcisse Díaz de la Peña (1807-1876) - Nymphs in the Forest

Narcisse Díaz de la Peña, "Nymphs in the Forest". Oil on canvas signed "Diaz" lower left. In its original gilded wooden frame bearing the name "Diaz" on a brass plaque.

Narcisse Virgile Díaz de la Peña (Bordeaux, August 25, 1807 – Menton, November 18, 1876) was a French painter of the Barbizon school.

French of Spanish origin, Narcisse Diaz de la Peña worked for a time in a porcelain factory before devoting himself entirely to painting. From his first participation in the Salon, in 1831, he enjoyed great success thanks to his representations of gallant and very imaginative scenes. Despite the success of his nymphs, the artist immediately showed a penchant for landscapes and joined his friends Jules Dupré and Théodore Rousseau in Barbizon. He became a regular in the Fontainebleau forest where he revealed all his great mastery in capturing, with a sparkling touch and the use of pure colors, the effects of light among the branches and in the undergrowth.
Diaz left a considerable and very varied body of work, achieving an original synthesis between the landscape of Barbizon and the taste for the Orient and the frivolity of his time.

His landscapes - the bulk of his work - are above all the forest: the painter enjoys painting forest interiors marked by the contrast between shadow and light, the shimmering foliage, setting up the easel at Bas-Bréau, Apremont and in places decorated with lakes and clearings near the village of Barbizon. His pastoral scenes express the carnal desire that permeates the bathers, the nudes, the nymphs and the loves, the lascivious and voluptuous women.
An authentic artist with a fiery temperament, Diaz's art is not an imitation, but a creation. Admired by Monet and Monticelli, whom he completely fascinated, a creator of light and color, the painter prefigures in his work a new way of capturing light. Tachiste, intentionally blurs the details of the form by juxtaposing the colors and breaks down the effect of light by separating each brushstroke. Pre-impressionist - from 1872 to 1874 his studies have all the characteristic features of nascent impressionism - a virtuoso of the palette, Narcisse Diaz dazzles the eye with all the seductions of light and the charm of a great colorist.

This beautiful canvas, which comes to us from a private collection, belongs to one of the highest moments of Diaz's artistic production. In her, the forest and the carnal voluptuousness of her characters meet: at the edge of the forest, near a small lake, a half-naked nymph rests, observing the water while swinging one foot. Barely covered by an oriental shawl, her very white skin and red hair shine in contrast with the dark forest that invades her. Soft and opulent, the nymph and the odalisque merge in her. Behind her a winged putto observes her while on the other side two companions are busy observing a swan.

The painting is in first canvas. It has been the subject of a professional restoration with cleaning and consolidation of a slightly damaged part of the canvas. During the cleaning process, the authenticity of the signature was verified, photographed with an electronic microscope.

For amateurs, Diaz's house can still be admired today in Barbizon, overlooking the Grande rue.

Measurements
canvas cm 60 x 50
frame cm 80 x 70