Eugene Fromentin (1820-1876) was a French painter and writer, born in La Rochelle. He first showed artistic talent in 1840. The pictures of Marilhat, exhibited in 1844, inspired him with a passion for the East, and in 1846 he made his first visit to Algiers. His earliest Salon pictures were two Algerian sketches and a French landscape, in 1847; and after a second and third visit to Algiers Fromentin published his impressions, in
Une Année dans le Sahel (1859) and
L'Été dans la Sahara (1857; new ed. 1888). His
Maitres d'Autrefois, a subtle critical study of the Dutch and Flemish painters, was not published until 1876.
Fromentin's paintings have definite personal charm and vivid delicate effects of color and of atmosphere, but are less scientific than the work of his noted confrères. He was an acute critic of the technique of painting, and shows keen observation and study of the effect of sunlight on color. Some of his best paintings are "Crossing the Ford," "Arabs Watering Horses," and "Encampment in Atlas Mountains."
Eugene Fromentin "Encampment in Atlas Mountains"
