Édouard Bertin
1797–1871 · French nineteenth-century landscape painter
François-Édouard Bertin (Paris, 1797 – Paris, 1871) was a French landscape painter, the son of the well-known journalist Louis-François Bertin. He trained under Girodet-Trioson and Bidauld, and his reputation rests mainly on landscape, a genre in which he excelled at rendering the details and overall character of a scene with great skill.
His technique was known for meticulous drawing, although his sources note that his colouring was his weakest point. His works include views of Olevano, of the Cervara quarries, of the Forest of Fontainebleau and of an excavated monastery near Viterbo, as well as scenes of the old tombs on the Nile. He also painted a historical subject, Cimabue Meeting Giotto, and Christ on the Mount of Olives, dated 1837.
In public service he was an inspector of the Beaux-Arts, and from 1854 he directed the Journal des Débats, the newspaper founded by his father. He died in Paris in 1871. His significance lies chiefly in his role as a landscape painter working between academic tradition and a more direct study of nature, and in having taught Eugène-Ferdinand Buttura.
Works (2)
This mythological landscape shows a spring from which the Alpheus river flows, beside a satyr set in the natural surroundings. Bertin painted it in 1900 in oil on canvas. The available information does not specify its commission or reception, so the reading rests on what the scene shows.
Where to see the work
- Musée des Beaux-Arts de Carcassonne Carcassonne · 1
- Musée d'art et d'histoire de Narbonne Narbonne · 1
Teachers and pupils
Pupils
- Eugène-Ferdinand Buttura 1812–1852