17 Works, Today, March 26th. is artist Gustave Achille Guillaumet's day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #84

Style of Gustave Achille Guillaumet  (1840–1887)

Charge de cavaliers arabes/ Charge of Arab horsemen

Oil on canvas

40 x 102 cm 

Private collection

Gustave Achille Guillaumet (26 March 1840 – 14 March 1887), born in 1840 in Puteaux (now in the Hauts-de-Seine, Paris) was a French artist. He is best known for his paintings of North Africa.

Gustave Achille Guillaumet  (1840–1887)

Pause de la caravane dans le désert/ Caravan break in the desert

Oil on canvas

33,5x57 cm 

Private collection

Gustave Achille Guillaumet  (1840–1887)

Evening Prayer in the Sahara, c. 1863

Oil on canvas

1,3x2,8 m.

Orsay museum, Paris, France

Gustave Achille Guillaumet  (1840–1887)

Detail; Evening Prayer in the Sahara, c. 1863

Oil on canvas

Orsay museum, Paris, France

Gustave Achille Guillaumet  (1840–1887)

Guerriers arabes au repos/ Arab warriors at rest, circa 1886

Height: 37.5 cm (14.7 in); Width: 55 cm (21.6 in) Edit this at Wikidata

Brest’s Museum of Fine Arts, France

Guillaumet was initially a student of François-Edouard Picot and Félix-Joseph Barrias. In 1857 he joined the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he became a student of Alexandre Abel de Pujol.

Gustave Achille Guillaumet  (1840–1887)

Tisseuses à Bou-Saäda, also known as Spinners at Bou-Saâda, between 1840 and 1887

Oil on canvas

H. 55.0; L. 75.7 cm. H. 86; L. 106.5 cm

Orsay Museum, Paris, France

Bou Saada, meaning "place of happiness") is a town and municipality in M'Sila Province, Algeria, situated 245 km south of Algiers. As Arena it was the site of a city and bishopric in Roman Africa, now a Catholic titular see. More on Bou Saada

Gustave Achille Guillaumet  (1840–1887)

Interior in Bou-Saâda, between 1840 and 1887

Oil on canvas

H. 74.7; L. 102.7 cm.

Orsay museum, Paris, France

Gustave Achille Guillaumet (French, 1840–1887)

Intérieur de Maison à Bou-Saada/ Interior of House in Bou-Saada

Oil on canvas

68.5 x 91 cm. (27 x 35.8 in.)

Private collection

Gustave Achille Guillaumet  (1840–1887)

Laghouat in the Algerian Sahara, c. 1879

Oil on canvas

Height: 123 cm (48.4 in); Width: 180 cm (70.8 in) Edit this at Wikidata

Musée d'Orsay 

Laghouat, town and oasis, north-central Algeria. It is located where the northern fringe of the Sahara meets the southern edge of the Saharan Atlas Mountains, on the route linking Algiers with central Africa. The oasis was probably settled in the 11th century after the Banū Hilāl invaders, supported by the Fāṭimids of Egypt, crossed the area. Laghouat subsequently passed through Moroccan and Turkish hands and was divided by two warring groups representing the Ouled Serrine and Hallaf peoples. The oasis, taken and united by the French in 1852, reverted to Algeria in 1962. It is one …(100 of 215 words). More on Laghouat

Gustave Achille Guillaumet  (1840–1887)

Flute players at the bivouac, c. 1866

Oil on canvas

H. 100.0; L. 160.0 cm.

Orsay museum, Paris, France

A bivouac shelter is an improvised camp site, or shelter that is usually of a temporary nature, used especially by soldiers, or persons engaged in backpacking. It may often refer to sleeping in the open with a bivouac sack, but it may also refer to a shelter constructed of natural materials like a structure of branches to form a frame, which is then covered with leaves, ferns, and similar material. More on bivouac

In 1861 Guillaumet entered the Historical Landscape category of the Prix de Rome for a scholarship to study at the Academy of France in Rome. On failing to win, he instead travelled across the Mediterranean to Algeria, in north Africa. While there he contracted malaria and had to spend three months at the military hospital in Biskra.

Gustave Achille Guillaumet  (1840–1887)

CAVALIERS À L'OUED/ HORSE RIDERS BY THE RIVER, c. 1869

Oil on canvas

44 x 65 cm; 17 1/3 by 25 1/2 in

Private collection

Gustave Achille Guillaumet  (1840–1887)

On the bank of the El Kantara river

Oil on canvas

22 x 31 in. (55.5 x 78 cm.) 

Private collection

Gustave Achille Guillaumet  (1840–1887)

Detail; On the bank of the El Kantara river

Oil on canvas

Private collection

Gustave Achille Guillaumet (French, 1840–1887)

LES FEMMES DU DOUAR À LA RIVIÈRE/ THE WOMEN OF THE DOUAR AT THE RIVER

Oil on canvas

81 x 116 cm. (31.9 x 45.7 in.)

Private collection

El Kantara river in mid-season, not quite a dry wadi, nor yet the torrent that carved such a ravine. The town was  one of the most important caravan-stations in E. Algeria, a place that owed its prominence and fame to “the grand gorge of the Oued el-Kantara, called by the natives Fumm es-Sahara (‘Mouth of the Desert’).

Gustave Achille Guillaumet  (1840–1887)

UNE NOCE ARABE À EL-KANTARA/ ARAB WEDDING IN EL-KANTARA

Oil on panel

27 X 34cm (10 5/8 X 13 3/8 IN.) 

Private collection

Guillaumet visited Algeria ten times between 1861 and 1867. He preferred to travel in the south and many of his works depict the life of the people of the desert.

Gustave Achille Guillaumet  (1840–1887)

Macbeth et les sorcières/ Macbeth and the witches

Oil on canvas

145 x 114 cm 

Private collection

Throughout the play, the witches—referred to as the “weird sisters” by many of the characters—lurk like dark thoughts and unconscious temptations to evil. In part, the mischief they cause stems from their supernatural powers, but mainly it is the result of their understanding of the weaknesses of their specific interlocutors—they play upon Macbeth’s ambition like puppeteers. More on Macbeth and the witches

Gustave Achille Guillaumet  (1840–1887)

Detail; Macbeth et les sorcières/ Macbeth and the witches

Oil on canvas

145 x 114 cm 

Private collection

Whereas Orientalism generally gave a deliberately idealised or anecdotal picture of north Africa, Guillaumet's work was notable for portraying the harshness of life in a desert region. The Sahara features the carcass of a camel in the foreground with a caravan - or mirage of one - on the horizon and empty desert in-between. It was first exhibited to considerable success at the Salon of 1868.

Gustave Guillaumet

The March of Silenus, 1861

Oil on canvas

H. 24.5; L. 32.0 cm.

Orsay Museum, Paris, France

The March of Silenus is a lively satire of mankind’s folly aimed at exposing social vulgarities. Beard depicts a mock procession in which Silenus, a companion of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, appears as a rotund brown bear accompanied by a troupe of drunken, cavorting accomplices. Goats dance, play musical instruments, and carry grapes while bears can be seen hanging from and hiding behind trees and rolling down the trail in the distance. All are anxious to taste the “nectar of the Gods”—some of them are even poised with their mouths wide open in anticipation. More on The March of Silenus

Between 1879 and 1884 La Nouvelle Revue published tableaux of Algerian scenes collected together by Guillaumet. These were later published as a book, Tableaux Algériens. It includes twelve etchings by Guillaumet, Courtry, Paul Edmé Le Rat, Adolphe-Alphonse Géry-Bichard, August Müller and Toussaint; six photogravures by Dujardin and one hundred and twenty-eight engravings in relief from drawings and sketches by Guillaumet, himself. The book was published in 1888, after Guillaumet's death and is prefaced by a note on his life by Eugène Mouton.

Gustave Achille Guillaumet (French, 1840–1887)

Danse dans le harem/ Dance in the harem

Oil on canvas

73 x 53 cm. (28.7 x 20.9 in.)

Private collection

Gustave Achille Guillaumet (French, 1840–1887)

FEMME PENSIVE EN BLANC/ WOMAN DRESSED IN WHITE

Oil on canvas

25.5 x 19 cm. (10 x 7.5 in.)

Private collection

Gustave Achille Guillaumet (French, 1840–1887)

Jeune fille arabe/ Arab girl

Oil on canvas

48 x 39.5 cm. (18.9 x 15.6 in.)

Private collection

In 1878, Guillaumet was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour, the highest decoration in France. 

Guillaumet died in Paris in 1887. Speculation about the circumstances of his death, supposedly of peritonitis, was published in The New York Times on April 6. The article claimed that Guillaumet had left his wife and son to live with "a lady who was his senior by many years" but that a few weeks before his death he had shot himself following an argument with his mistress. More on Gustave Achille Guillaumet 

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