Louis Deschamps
1846–1902 · French painter of social scenes and rural life
Louis Deschamps (Montélimar, 1846 - Montélimar, 1902) was a French painter. He trained first at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyon and, from 1872, at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he was a pupil of Alexandre Cabanel. His work centres on social subjects, such as poor peasants, abandoned children and seduced young women, often using young rural girls as models.
He exhibited at the Paris Salon between 1872 and 1889 and later at the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. In 1889 he won a bronze medal at the Universal Exposition in Paris. Alongside other prominent painters of the time, he was chosen to illustrate the national edition of Victor Hugo's Les Contemplations. His brushwork is dense and thick, and his faces, charged with emotion, emerge from dark backgrounds. Among his best-known works are The Death of Mireille, an episode from Frédéric Mistral's Mirèio, and Vincent Wounded, from the same series.
Late in life he returned to his native Montélimar, where he died in 1902. He also taught, and some local artists from Montélimar were influenced by his work.
Teachers and pupils
Studied with
- Alexandre Cabanel 1823–1889