Under the Lamp (Sous la Lampe)
Albert Dubois-Pillet
Description
March 28, 2009
Dubois-Pillet was a professional army officer, not a trained artist, but his still-life paintings were accepted by the Paris Salon in the 1870s. Later, as a member of the Neo-Impressionist group of painters, he experimented with the technique of applying strokes of color directly on the canvas instead of mixing colors on a palette. In doing this he was in the vanguard of painters including Camille Pissarro, Paul Signac, and Georges Seurat, who embraced scientific theories of color and light and achieved chromatic variation in paint by juxtaposing dots of color that were mixed by the viewer’s eye rather than the artist. Here, Dubois-Pillet puts complementary colors such as green and purple, and orange and blue, side by side to create the luminous effect of artificial light.
This still-life painting is also an example of his experimentation with complementary color frames. The original frame has not survived; UMMA curatorial staff created this replication based upon contemporary descriptions written during the painting’s exhibition at the Salons des Independents in 1888.
Physical Description:
This is a tondo painting with a circular frame that is painted in tones of violet. It is a still-life scene that shows a lamp, resting on a table, set against a green wall. On the wall behind the lamp is a painting, but only the lower right-hand corner is visible due to the sharp curve of the circular format of the painting. On the table, beside the lamp, is a piece of paper and an ink well in the shape of a human figure. The base of the lamp has a curvilinear profile and the pleated shade is painted in bright colors of orange, pink, green and yellow. Both the scene and the frame are painted with short, dot-like brushstrokes.
Usage Rights:
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