Stanislas Lépine (1835 - 1920)

"La rue des Saules" in Montmartre, circa 1872, by painter Stanislas Lépine. A delicate, refined work with a free, lifted touch.

Oil on canvas board,
Signed lower right, located on back
Dimensions: 24 x 34.5 cm
With frame: 46.5 x 55 cm

Stanislas Lépine, a Montmartre painter

Stanislas Lépine, a Montmartre native by adoption, painted the "Rue des Saules" in Montmartre shortly before 1872. A second view of the street, dated between 1872 and 1876 (Artcurial, June 17, 1997), shows the gas lanterns hanging on the wall.
The painter depicts the façade of no. 22 as that of the "Lapin agile", one of Bohemia's favorite meeting places at the beginning of the 20th century.

His canvases painted on the hilltop bear witness not to the Montmartre of parties and balls, but to that of the alleys, walls and courtyards of the village that survives as Paris prepares to annex it.
He likes to paint quiet, often deserted streets, as in our painting.

Stanislas Lépine, a sensitive and delicate pre-impressionist painter

Here, the painter's attention is focused on the streets of old Paris and those of the Butte Montmartre at the dawn of the industrial era. He depicts with a free, light touch, his colorful palette playing on the nuances of stone and nature.

Lépine rubbed shoulders with Corot, and the admiration between the two painters was mutual. In our painting, we find something of Corot's softness and transparency.

Notoriously, Lépine took part in the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris in 1874, where he presented three paintings. He rubbed shoulders with Monet, Sisley, Pissarro and Renoir. Although he did not join the movement in terms of plastic research, he did share the Impressionists' attraction to the Paris of modernity.

Biography

Montmartre

Stanislas Lépine, a Montmartre native by adoption, hails from Caen in Normandy. He began а drawing at an early age, attracted by the ports and shores of his province.

He arrived а Paris at the age of 20. Coming from a family of modest craftsmen, he couldn't afford lessons in a master's studio. He taught himself and spent time drawing in the Louvre.

To find a place to live, he looked for a neighborhood with affordable rents. He settled in Montmartre, which was not yet part of Paris. Thirty-seven years of Montmartre life!

Shortly after his arrival, he married his childhood friend Marie Odile Dodin. The two formed a loving couple.

Appreciating the tranquility, they led a simple life and stayed away from fashionable places. Stanislas Lépine was only seen on rare occasions, in the cafés where painters and poets gathered.

This is where he took part in informal meetings with painter-friends including Sisley and Eugène Boudin.

J.B Corot

He also met Jean Baptiste Corot, for whom he had great admiration. Moved by Lépine's passion and humility, the 19th-century master of French naturalist landscapes offered him his brushes and his vision of nature, which he applied to that of urban life

J. B Corot confided to him that a landscape artist like him "could do masterpieces on the Butte Montmartre."

Fantin-Latour

Among Stanislas Lépine's other important encounters, we should also mention Fantin-Latour, who became a loyal friend and who, а several times, notably when he had to move and find a new home, did not hesitate to help him financially.

Count Doria

Another decisive encounter that enabled him to continue painting without having to exhaust himself in small survival jobs, was that of Count Doria. A wealthy collector and patron of the arts, he became her protector, buying her canvases and lodging her in his chateau at Orrouy.
This attentive, generous man of taste also had a decisive influence on the careers of painters: Corot, Jongkind, Millet at a time when they were either unknown or mocked. He helped to make them better known.

Museums

PARIS

- Musée d'Orsay, Musée Carnavalet, Département des Arts Graphiques du Musée du Louvre.

Source

.https://www.montmartre-secret.com/2024/12/stanislas-lepine-peintre-de-montmartre.html