Alphonse Osbert

Educated at the École des Beaux-Arts, his earliest passion was for the great Spanish masters, particularly Jusepe de Ribera.

Osbert abandoned naturalistic painting in favour of a Pointillist technique like that employed by Seurat and Signac.

Also inspired by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and the Symbolists, he chose to forsake depiction of real-world subject matter, and developed a poetic visual language of his own.

His signature style consists of ghostlike Muses in mysterious landscapes bathed in the unearthly light of a sun or moon, rendered with abundant use of the colour blue.

[1] An overview of his career titled 'Le peintre symboliste Alphonse Osbert', written by Véronique Dumas, was published by CNRS in 2005.