Leon Perrault: Painting The Water Nymphs

Theme: Paintings of Water Nymph. Painting the Natural beauty of female body.

A Water Nymph, Oil on Canvas

by Leon Jean BasilePerrault, 1898.

Leon Jean Bazille Perrault (1832 - 1908), a French painter, was student of Bouguereau, a photo realist painter. In addition to learning the neatness of painting from him, he had taken lessons form the master French painter none other than Picot. Here he would consolidate his art of painting.

The Artist: Leon was a painter who had mastered the art of painting the children. There are several masterpieces he painted were involving children as main subject on canvas. He earned credit of being a painter of children. After he painted le petit naufrage (The little shipwrecked boy, 1874), he became a famous painter in France.

The Art: In one of his famous paintings shown here, A Water Nymph, Leon depicted his control over selection of colour schemes. His brushes ran smoothly. His brushwork was so soft that it would not to give a slightest pain to the smooth surface of subject he painted. And here the subject was a beautiful woman, posing as Water Nymph. To see evidence of the subtlety of his brush, we should look at the back of the woman who had posed so unclothed. You will find how subtle was the hand work of the artist who painted skin folds of a woman who was in the state of her natural beauty. (Image courtesyBy Léon Bazille Perrault (1832–1908) (artrenewal) [public domain], from Wikimedia Commons)

Understanding the Painting: The colour selection for this painting is skillfully selected. Use of yellow for the figure of woman sitting without clothes and using blue in showing the roaring waves of water have made this painting extremely attractive. Here the young lady looks pleased on hearing the subtle sound coming from a sea-shell. The roaring waves of water and the sea-shell help making the beautiful woman a nymph.

Here the sea symbioses wealth where as the painting of healthy buttock symbolizes fertility. Both of these attract our eyes. In this painting the continuous and uninterrupted brush strokes have helped creating a graceful design on the canvas. This painting is work of profound sensual imagination of the artist.

In this painting Vanitas, we see the femininity in its full swing. But the insecurity that a woman wears on her face in such a situation is missing in both of these paintings. In this painting, too, the women feels quite comfortable with herself, even if she is sitting almost cloth-less holding a mirror. In all it looks like an artistic record of a single moment, where a woman holds the mirror aesthetically with her hand and looks pleasant on hearing the sound of mass of water at a distance. (Image courtesy By Léon Bazille Perrault (1832–1908) Description French painter Date of birth/death 20 June 1832(1832-06-20) 6 August 1908(1908-08-06) Location of birth/death Poitiers, France Royan, France Work location France (http://palgraphicsarea.blogspot.com) [null], from Wikimedia Commons )

For an artist painting such an art-piece is matter of pleasure. For the eyes of viewers, the beautifully executed paintings of natural beauty of women are big source of artistic pleasure. When we see a painting like A Water Nymph or Varitas, we believe that the beauty and elegance play a major role in creation of an artwork. We always love to see the sea, the source of many wealth and food for us.