Une forge

Dated to 1893 and held by the Musée d'Orsay, this canvas by Fernand Cormon was produced after his most celebrated period of Salon success but during a phase when he remained highly active as a teacher and official artist. By 1893 he had been appointed to a professorship at the École des Beaux-Arts, where his atelier became one of the most sought-after in Paris. Among his students in the preceding decade were Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec — an irony that placed the rigidly academic Cormon in direct pedagogical relationship with two of the painters who would do most to overthrow the academic tradition. His own work in the 1890s continued the history and figure subjects that had made his reputation, though the critical climate was increasingly dominated by the Symbolist and Impressionist movements he did not share. An Orsay canvas from 1893 represents the continued official support for his work even as avant-garde taste moved elsewhere.

Cormon's 1893 technique shows the consistency of a painter committed to his established approach: careful drawing, controlled oil application, and a tonal scheme derived from academic study of the figure. His palette in this decade sometimes shows slightly greater range than the earth-heavy tones of his prehistoric subjects, reflecting the diversity of subjects he addressed.