Cleveland Museum of Art
The Contemplator
Eugène CarrièreLinkedCulture matchlcp-9645c741f5f0
- Date
- 1901
- Medium
- oil on fabric
- Culture
- France, late 19th-early 20th Century
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 124804
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
This painting illustrating Victor Hugo's poem Boaz Sleeping is one of five images Carrière created to commemorate the centennial of Hugo's birth. A reclining poet gazes at the stars above, as if in a dream, placing one hand over his heart and gesturing toward a crescent moon. The moon was thought to exert a special influence on poets and artists, inspiring not only creativity but darker thoughts of melancholy and suicide. In this painting Carrière captures the atmosphere of Victor Hugo's poems through his expressive brushstrokes and monochromatic palette. The artist's monochrome paintings influenced Picasso and his Blue Period works.
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Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- In memory of Ralph King, gift of Mrs. Ralph King; Ralph T. Woods, Charles G. King; and Frances King Schafer
- Provenance
- Édouard Pelletan [1854-1912], Paris, France | (Scott & Fowles, New York, NY, sold to Ralph King) | -1946: Ralph King [1855-1926], Cleveland, OH, by gift in his memory from his family to the Cleveland Museum of Art | 1946-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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