Peace by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes Postcard

Peace by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, oil on canvas 1867, is a painting in the Renaissance and Neo-Classical tradition of figures in pastoral landscape. A hand-painted, floral border frame surrounds groups of figures in an Arcadian meadow who drink wine and reap the fruits of a bountiful harvest and other rewards of peacetime. To the left, a former warrior relaxes in the sun, his shield and spear at his side. Puvis quotes from similar subjects by the Renaissance artists, Nicolas Poussin, and Ingres. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824 - 1898) was a French painter and one of the most widely admired and influential artists during the latter 19th century. Puvis studied briefly under Delacroix and Thomas Couture and at the Académie des Beaux Arts before gaining wide recognition exhibiting in the Paris Salon. His many public and private mural commissions canonized Puvis as the "painter for France", bringing many accolades from across the worlds of art and literature. His work is part of the French Symbolist movement, spanning the period between Romanticism and the rise of Modernism. Though Puvis’ reputation has diminished greatly, the artist influenced countless others including Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, and left an unmistakable impression on the 20th century Modernists such as Matisse and