PICOU Henri PICOU
Henri Picou represents perfectly the French traditional school of the second part of the XIXe century.
A student of Paul Delaroche, he also had close friendships with Gerome and Glryre, whose influence is seen perfectly in this work. Henri Picou began exhibiting in 1847 in the Salon des Artistes Français. He obtained medals in 1848 and 1857. He consistently presented allegorical or mythological scenes. He depicted lightly clad young women with flowing dresses showing evolving/moving figures in ancient costume. His oeuvre and presentiment of the voluptuous bodies of vestals is always pure. Henri Picou had a large workshop on Magenta Boulevard in Paris, where he could work and produce very large frescos for which he received many orders, in particular for the church Saint-Roch in Paris and Our Lady of the Good Help in Nantes. These frescos, are of a style different from that of work presented, and are depicted in a style evolving between the naturalism of Courbet and the intellectualism of Puvis of Chavannes, as seen in Picou’s "Allegory with the nature" of 1895 preserved at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nantes. Diverse in subject matter, Picou was also an excellent painter of history. Several of his works are preserved in French museums, in particular at Nantes, his birthplace, but also in recently at Dahesh Museum of New York.