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The Poor Fisherman
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes · Symbolism & Art Nouveau
- Artist
- Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824–1898)
- Date
- 1881
- Dimensions
- 155.5 x 192.5 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France
The Poor Fisherman shows a thin fisherman standing in a small boat with his head bowed and his hands clasped, as if in prayer, while on the shore behind him a young woman gathers flowers and a baby sleeps on the grass.
A closer look
The landscape is reduced to a few flat, pale bands of colour: a grey-green estuary, a low shore, a muted sky. The figures are motionless, simplified, almost like a fresco. The fisherman's resignation and the quiet presence of the woman and child create a melancholy atmosphere of poverty and patience, without anecdote. At the Salon of 1881 critics found the painting awkward and colourless, but young artists such as Seurat, Gauguin and later Picasso admired its simplicity and silence.