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Thomas Couture - Lawyer Going to Court - Walters 371204
Summary
A lawyer walks up a wind-blown street, presumably in the artist's native town of Senlis in north-central France. Although he specialized in allegorical paintings, such as "Daydreams," Couture urged his pupils to select subjects drawn from contemporary life. In this scene, the choice of subject and the spontaneity of treatment recall the works of Honoré Daumier (1809-79). The painting also demonstrates the artist's use of exposed areas of white, primed canvas to lend texture and immediacy to his technique.
Thomas Couture (1815–1879) was an academic painter best known for his portraits and historical genre pictures such as “The Romans of the Decadence” (1847), which created a sensation at the Salon of 1847. Couture developed his excellent portrait skills under Baron Antoine-Jean Gros. An academician of stature, he combined soft, 18th-century coloring and a strict 19th-century classicism in his most important work. His sharp use of tonal contrasts is thought to have influenced one of his most famed students, Édouard Manet. Puvis de Chavannes and Henri Fantin-Latour also studied under this popular teacher.
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