FROMENTIN, Eugene, French painter: b. La Rochelle, 24 Oct. 1820; d. Saint Maurice, near La Rochelle, 27 Aug. 1876. He began life as a law student, but early turned his attention to landscape painting, working in the studio of Louis Sabat. In 1842 he traveled in Algeria, and it was after this journey that under the guidance of Marilhat, the painter of Oriental scenes, he resolved to work a new vein in the same department by painting the North African deserts. In 1847 he exhibited at the Salon for the first time and visited Algeria twice (1848-52). The fruits of these wanderings were not only numerous pic tures, but also two literary works descriptive of his travels. These were 'A Summer in the Sahara> (1856), and Year in the Sahel) (1858), works distinguished by powerful and richly colored style and poetic imagination. As a painter his aim was to depict the light and atmosphere of the desert with truth and deli cacy, yet imparting to it his own subjective interpretation, and he showed a marked taste for studies in gray and violet. The masterly
analysis of ancient painting, which appears in his of a Former (1876), em bodies the results of his travels in Holland and Belgium (1875), where he made a careful study of the Dutch and Flemish masters. His paintings are remarkable for their brightness and harmony of color, excellent draftsmanship and execution. The most noted are (A La Rochelle Farm' (1847) •, 'The Gazelle Hunt' (1857) ; 'A Street in (1859) ' • (An Arab Bivouac' ; Falcon Hunt' (1863) ; and (An Arab Camp,' his last picture, in the Louvre. He is represented in the Walters col lection, Baltimore, and in the Vanderbilt collec tion and the Metropolitan Museum, New York. Consult Blanchon, and Letters of Eugene Fromentin> (1909) ; Claretie, ((Engine (in 'Peintres et sculpteurs contem porains,' Paris 1882); Gouse, 'Eugene Fro mentin, peintre et ecrivain> (ib. 1881); Huthor, 'Modern Painting' (New York 1907); Jouin, (in (Maitres contemporains,' Paris 1887).