beside the easel

Hide and Seek, 1877 James Jacques Joseph Tissot was born on October 15, 1836 on the western coast of France. A contemporary of Whistler, Degas and Manet, he reached a fair degree of success in his life yet strangely is almost forgotten today. Born twenty years before Sargent, Tissot would examine contemporary modern life while idealizing beautifully dressed women. Tissot had an eye for capturing moments and facial expressions that deserves particular attention because he did it without resorting to melodrama. He had an acute sense of light and composition, telling a story without having to a need to say a lot, yet still manages to captivate. Oddly enough, in his later years he suddenly became religious and his paintings took a mostly artificial turn, failing to capture the spontaneity and freshness of life that he was a master of. On occasion, he took biblical inspiration into anachronism and made modern-day interpretations of the bible, some of which are worth noting. In Hide ...