PUVIS de CHAVANNES, PIERRE. - Painter, born in Lione on 14 Dec. 1824, died in Parigi on 24 Oct. 1898.
Having grown up in an environment dominated by the great personalities of French Romantic painting, he witnessed the triumph of Impressionist theories. Yet his art acquires significance insofar as, together with that of Gustavo Moreau, it may also appear, as indeed it has appeared, as a solemn protest against Impressionism.
His paintings in the Hôtel de Ville in Parigi, in the Sorbona, and in the Pantheon, as well as his pictures in the Museums of Amiens, Lione, Rouen, and Marsiglia, indeed reveal his intention to reaffirm the supremacy of drawing over colour. This is evident in compositions painted in juxtaposed, at times most luminous tones, which clearly show P. de C.'s study of the art of Piero della Francesca, whom he regarded as the greatest Italian artist of the Renaissance.
The qualities of P. de C. are essentially those of a great decorative painter. He is able to impart to his figures an idyllic sense of peace and an unquestionable nobility of pose and gesture, arranging them with simple harmony within the spaces allotted by architecture to pictorial decoration. This is especially so in his paintings in the Parisian Pantheon depicting the Stories of St. Elisabetta, which he brought to completion between 1876 and 1898.