Gustave Brion
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gustave Brion (1824–1877) was a French painter and illustrator best known for his depictions of rural life in Alsace and for his illustrations of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.[1]
He was born at Rothau in the department of Bas-Rhin on 24 October 1824 and studied in Strasbourg under the painter Gabriel-Cristophe Guérin and then the sculptor Andreas Friedrich. In 1847, his exhibited Intérieur à Dambach at the Salon of 1847.[2] A few years later, he moved to a studio on rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, in the same building as Realist artists Jules Breton and François Bonvin.[3]
Brion gained recognition for his genre paintings depicting the peasant life and customs of Alsace, though he occasionally painted historical subjects, such as The Siege of a Town by Romans under Julius Caesar, commissioned by Napoleon III. He earned a Second-Class Medal at the Paris Salon of 1853 for his paintings Schlitteurs de la Forêt-Noire and Potato Harvest during an Inundation. The former was later destroyed during the Franco-Prussian War.[1] In 1863, his work Les Fleurs du Pays earned him a First-Class Medal at the Salon of 1863, along with the Legion of Honour. Additional honors followed at the Exposition Universelle of 1867 and the Salon of 1868.[4]
In addition to painting, Brion worked as a book illustrator. He designed over 200 illustrations for the first edition of Hugo's novel Les Misérables,[5] including the first published portrayal of Inspector Javert.[6] His illustrations for the author's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame depicted Quasimodo and Esmeralda.[1]
Despite his success in Paris, Brion remained deeply attached to his native Alsace, and the annexation of the region by Germany after the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 was a personal loss for him. He died on 3 November 1877 at the age of 53.[4]
Brion was a grandnephew of Friederike Brion, the muse of Goethe’s early poetry.[7]
