Albert-Émile Artigue
Argentinean, 1850 - 1927Spring Flowers, 1897
On view
Oil on panel
Dimensions39 × 51 in.
Gift of Randolph P. Piper in memory and honor of all the girls and women in his life, 2019.88
By the time this work was painted in 1897, middle- to upper-class European women’s lives had begun to radically change. Nowhere was this truer than in Paris, the city that was the center for modern ideas, art, culture, and literature. No longer confined largely to the home, women worked in offices and shops or achieved the right to attend university or college. Imagery of the so-called “New Woman”—a term coined by Irish writer Sarah Grand but popularized by American writer Henry James—was evident in Art Nouveau advertising posters visible throughout the city. These new roles also involved changes in activity and dress. Women sought freedom from tight, corseted dresses and instead embraced looser, free-flowing gowns, like the ones worn by the six women in this painting. Actively involved in a leisurely pursuit of collecting flowers from blossoming trees, the women also display a carefree and relaxed attitude, reveling in their freedom.
Exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1897, Albert-Émile Artigue’s Spring Flowers was an instant success with both the press and the public. It was so popular that it was reproduced as a print, which many could afford to buy and keep as a souvenir. Artigue was born in Buenos Aires, the son of French parents. His father was Federico Artigue, a painter and photographer. By the age of fifteen, Albert-Émile Artigue was living in France, and would begin his studies at the École Régionale des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux. He would complete his training in Paris, and most importantly study with Alexandre Cabanel. His paintings predominantly featured women of the Belle Époque, themes of which continued in his engravings, lithographs, and posters.
