19th Century French painter Jules Bastien-Lepage had a short life. He first gained notice in the Salon as a painter of rural life, a theme to which he would return later in his career. His most noted painting during his lifetime was perhaps a portrait of Sarah Bernhardt, which won him the cross of the Leigon of Honor.

Today, however, those who have an appreciation for late 19th Century Academic painting are most likely to focus on his image of “Joan of Arc” (sometimes called “Joan of Arc Hearing Voices” – image above), the original of which is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The painting is quite large at almost nine feet to a side (100×110 inches or 254x279cm), and is striking when you stand in front of it. Bastien has chosen to bathe the young Joan’s moment of revelation from the voices in a soft, even light, making the highest contrast that of her bare arms and upturned face, and the light wall of her parents’ cottage, which serves as a stage against which the tableaux of the three saints can be seen.

The images of the saints are subtle and you only see them after fully registering Joan’s figure, which is painted with a palpable sense of realism. The rest of the scene emerges from the tangle of fruit tree branches and saplings. The effect is that the painting unfolds for you in layers, transitioning gradually from a peasant girl in a garden to the transcendent moment of inspiration for the national heroine of France.

Bastien’s command of rural subjects came from his upbringing in a small village. He used an apple tree in his grandfather’s garden for the tree in in “Joan of Arc”, and based the cottage on his family’s barn. Jeff Patterson has written an interesting article on this painting.

Bastien shows a similar command of the subtleties of diffuse lighting and tonal contrast in his other work, as in this painting of a young peasant girl.

He based his realism on an appreciation for nature as it is, and his painting and philosophy had an effect on the plein air painters of the late 19th Century, including the American painter J. Alden Weir and Spanish realist Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida. It’s also interesting to note that Bastien himself reportedly was particularly inspired by Jan van Eyck.

The artist’s career was hampered by ill-health and his life was cut short in 1884 at the age of 36.

Sitting astride the Arno river, like a ruby on a blue ribbon, Firenze (Florence to us English speakers) is one if Italy’s most beautiful cities. (How the British got “Florence” out of “Firenze”, I don’t know.) Firenze, (OK, OK, I’ll call it Florence) is also the official sister city of Philadelphia, here in the U.S., a fact of which I would wager most residents of both cities are unaware.

Florence was the center of the italian Renaissance and has been painted by some of the greatest artists in history, but I was particularly intrigued to see it painted by a contemporary American realist like Joseph Paquet (images above top left and right). These are part of a one-artist show at the Coleman Fine Art gallery in Charleston, South Carolina called “Mostly Florence“, that runs from now to June 2nd, 2007.

Paquet works in a loose, open style, not quite impressionist, but full of lively brushstrokes and rich color. He also has a solid ability to see and use value contrasts, a characteristic of his work that particularly shines in his paintings of Florence, with its wonderful architecture brought into high relief in the warm sun of the Tuscan plains. I was immediately reminded of my own time in Florence, more strongly than I would be by viewing photographs. I particularly enjoy his night scenes, both of intimate street corners and the sweeping vistas looking out over the Duomo from the Piazzalle Michelangelo and other vantage points in the hills “Alta Arno”.

Those same qualities of Paquet’s work also stand out in his painting of “Industrial Landscape” here in the U.S., as well as his more traditional landscapes, which are also highly evocative of time and place. The work on Paquet’s own site is divided into those categories, along with “Interiors and Portraits” and “Seascapes and Marine”, but within the broader classifications of work that is currently available or achived.

Paquet studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and his work includes plein air landscapes from that city as well as from his native Minnesota and from his travels. He also studied with John Osborne, who he credits with enabling him to see beyond the scene before him, particularly when creating a studio work based on sketches painted on location, and utilize his own artistic judgement in creating his compositions.

Paquet’s work has been featured in the Washington Post Sunday Magazine, the Classical Realism Journal, The Artist Magazine and American Artist.