Zacharie Astruc
{{Short description|French sculptor (1833–1907)}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Zacharie Astruc
| image = Zacharie Astruc by Félix Bracquemond.jpg
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| caption = Etching by Félix Bracquemond, c. 1865
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| birth_date = {{birth date|1833|02|23}}
| birth_place = Angers, France
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| death_date = {{death date and age|1907|05|24|1833|02|23}}
| death_place = Paris, France
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| movement = Impressionism
| spouse = Ida Astruc
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Zacharie Astruc (23 February 1833 in Angers – 24 May 1907 in Paris) was a French sculptor, painter, poet, and art critic.
Biography
Astruc was an important figure in the cultural life of France in the second half of the 19th century, and participated in the First Impressionist Exhibition of 1874 and also in the Exposition Universelle of 1900. As an art critic, writing primarily between 1859–72, he was a strong defender of Courbet, and was one of the first to recognize the talent of Manet, who he had befriended as early as 1854, or 1857 at the latest.{{cite book |editor-last1=Moffett|editor-first1=Charles S. |editor-last2= Cachin|editor-first2=Françoise| title=Manet, 1832-1883: Galeries Nationales Du Grand Palais, Paris, April 22-August 8, 1983, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, September 10-November 27, 1983 | publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art | year=1983 | isbn=978-0-87099-359-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sjSya-h9TYQC&pg=PA154 | access-date=2023-05-26}} He also defended Monet, Whistler, Carolus-Duran, Fantin-Latour, and Alphonse Legros. Art historian Michael Fried has written that Astruc "more than any other writer spoke for Manet's generation"{{cite book | last=Fried | first=Michael | title=Manet's Modernism: Or, The Face of Painting in the 1860s | publisher=University of Chicago Press | year=1996 | isbn=978-0-226-26217-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aV9bPK-vE6cC&pg=PA155 | access-date=2023-05-26}} and that "between 1859 and 1863 the young Astruc may have been the best critic of new art in France."{{cite book | last=Sayre | first=Henry M. | title=Value in Art: Manet and the Slave Trade | publisher=University of Chicago Press | year=2022 | isbn=978-0-226-80996-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m0xNEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT247 | access-date=2023-05-26}}
Astruc had a very wide range of artistic interests, both in subject and in form. Before becoming most well-known as a sculptor, he was a writer, critic, painter, playwright, and composer.
File:Manet - Lola De Valence, 1987.94.jpegAstruc was a hispanophile, well versed in the art and literature of Spain. After his own trip to Spain in 1864, he helped prepare the itinerary for Manet's only trip to Spain in 1865 by sending him a "long and effusive" itinerary, and later praised Manet's Spanish-inspired paintings as the work of "the artist who revealed Spain to the French."S. Flescher 1978, Chapter II.{{cite book | last=Tinterow | first=G. | last2=Lacambre | first2=G. | last3=Roldán | first3=D.L. | author4=Musée d'Orsay | title=Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting | publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art | series=Exposiciones | year=2003 | isbn=978-1-58839-040-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4somoplUFVwC&pg=PA545 | language=sk | access-date=2023-05-26}} Astruc helped to promote a widespread revival of interest in El Greco's paintings.J. Russel, [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE5DC1739F93BA25754C0A964948260 Seeing The Art Of El Greco As Never Before] He wrote a song dedicated to the Spanish dancer Lola de Valence in 1863, which was printed with a reproduction of a painting by Manet of de Valence as cover art.
Astruc was also a leading figure in the Japonism movement in France in the 1860s and '70s, publishing, among other writings, three pivotal articles on Japonism in the Parisian newspaper, L'Etendard, in 1867–68.S. Flescher 1978, Chapter lV. He wrote a Japanese-influenced play, L'ile de la demoiselle, in 1865.
He was married to Ida Astruc, whose bust Manet sculpted in Spanish costume in 1877.{{cite book | last=Thompson | first=Brian Christopher | title=Anthems and Minstrel Shows: The Life and Times of Calixa Lavallée, 1842-1891 | publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press | year=2015 | isbn=978-0-7735-8416-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G8CeCQAAQBAJ&pg=PT125 | access-date=2023-05-26}}
Astruc was an important connecting figure in the French art world of the time, if not a hugely important artist in his own right, and can be seen in several notable artworks of the 1860s to 1880s. He appears in Henri Fantin-Latour's painting A Studio at Les Batignolles, where he is seated next to Manet, who is shown painting his portrait. Astruc is generally credited with titling Manet's painting Olympia since an excerpt from an Astruc poem was included in the catalogue entry with the piece when it was exhibited at the 1865 Salon.Sharon Flescher, Zacharie Astruc: Critic, Artist and Japoniste (1833–1907) (Garland Publishing: New York, 1978). ISBN 9780824032265 Manet painted Astruc at least twice: Once in a portrait in 1866, and again in 1870's Music Lesson, in which Astruc plays the role of a music master teaching a young girl; Astruc's guitar can be seen in both works.{{cite book | last=Duret | first=Theodore | title=Manet and the French Impressionists | publisher=G. Richards | year=1910 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c7RCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA50 | access-date=2023-05-26}}
Along with many figures in the French art world of the late 1800s, Astruc inspired a character in French writer Marius Roux's novel The Substance and the Shadow, a roman à clef whose main character was a thinly disguised Paul Cézanne. "Lespignac", Astruc's character, is a con artist who becomes an art dealer.{{cite book | editor-last=Smith | editor-first=Paul |author-last=Roux |author-first=Marius | title=The Substance and the Shadow | publisher=Penn State University Press | series=Refiguring Modernism | year=2007 | isbn=978-0-271-08575-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T8fhDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA19 | access-date=2023-05-26}}
Works by Astruc
File:Zacharie Astruc - Scène de rue.jpg|Scène de rue à Cuenca, 1873
Image:Roses négligemment jetées sur un vase.jpg|Roses Carelessly
Thrown on a Vase
Image:Zacharie Astruc Intérieur Parisien.jpg|Parisian Interior
Image:Les Prèsents Chinois.jpg|Chinese Gifts
Image:Masques05.JPG|The Mask Seller
Jardin du Luxembourg
File:Flowers in a Vase MET DP805119.jpg|Flowers in a Vase, c. 1884–1904
File:Zacharie Astruc - La toilette du toréro - PDUT1879 - Musée des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris.jpg| La toilette du toréro, 1880
File:Zacharie Astruc - Anémones en caisse.jpg|Anémones en caisse, c. 1889
Works featuring Astruc
A friend of many French artists of his era, Astruc was often included in their works.
File:Portrait of Zacharie Astruc (1866) - Edouard Manet (Kunsthalle Bremen).jpg|Portrait of Zacharie Astruc by Édouard Manet, 1866, Kunsthalle Bremen
File:Bazille - L'HOMME AU CIGARE OR PORTRAIT DE ZACHARIE ASTRUC, 1869, lot.138 (cropped).jpg| Portrait de Zacharie Astruc by Frédéric Bazille, 1869
File:Henri Fantin-Latour - A Studio at Les Batignolles - Google Art Project.jpg|A Studio at Les Batignolles, Henri Fantin-Latour, 1870
File:Édouard Manet - Leçon de Musique.jpg|Music Lesson by Édouard Manet, 1870
File:Frédéric Bazille - Bazille's Studio - Google Art Project.jpg|Bazille's Studio by Frédéric Bazille, 1870
References
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External links
{{Commons category|Zacharie Astruc}}
- {{FrenchSculptureCensus}}
{{Authority control (arts)}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Astruc, Zacharie}}
Category:19th-century French sculptors
Category:19th-century French male artists
Category:French male sculptors
Category:20th-century French sculptors