Ferdinand BIZARD (1820-1879) - The bowl of cherries

Philibert Alexandre Ferdinand BIZARD
(Semur-en-Auxois, 1820 – Semur-en-Auxois, 1879)

The bowl of cherries

Oil on canvas mounted on strong cardboard
Signed and dated lower left
16x21cm
1872

Philibert-Alexandre-Ferdinand Bizard was born on September 29, 1820 in Semur-en-Auxois. His father, Jean-Baptiste Bizard (1796-1860), known as Bizard father, was a painter, born in Commarin; he works in Semur as a drawing teacher and lithographer draftsman. It was he who inculcated the notions of art history and the practice of drawing to his very young son. In 1838, a scholarship was awarded to the latter by the General Council of the Côte-d'Or to follow the courses of the School of Fine Arts in Dijon. Then he went to Paris in the studio of the painter Jean-Charles-Joseph Rémond, Grand Prix de Rome for historical landscape in 1821; it was this professor who presented him, because of his great abilities, on March 4, 1845, to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

The young man will participate in the Salons of 1839, 1844, 1850-51, 1857, 1864, 1865 and 1867, as well as in the Dijon exhibitions in 1840, 1849 and 1858. In Semur, he succeeded, in 1862, Étienne Bouhot , at the head of the School of Drawing of the city.

Bizard Jr painted many oil or watercolor paintings, particularly landscapes of the region: Le Saut du Gouloux (1841), Interior of the Notre-Dame de Semur church, A fuller near Semur… He likes also to represent still lifes: Still life (1869), Interior of kitchen, Game, Strawberries and grapes, Attributes of music… The artist also executed portraits: Portrait of Van Dyck, Portrait of Buffon, after FH Drouais…

Like his father, it is in the art of drawing that Bizard excels he sketches in pencil, during his walks, many landscapes and views of Semur and the surrounding area: Landscape at Bussy, Château de Nogent near Montbard... Ferdinand Bizard died in Semur in 1879.

Bibliography: Academy of Sciences, Arts and Belles Lettres of Dijon