Artists - Part 65

Gustave Courtois and
Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret

Gustav Courtois (1862-1923), at left above, was a French painter in the "academic" style.  At school, he met another artist, Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret (1852-1929), at right above, who became one of the leading members of the "naturalist" school.  The two men became lifelong friends and shared the same artists' studio in Paris.

We start with some male nudes by Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret.  Above, Reclining Male Nude, Study for Atalante, 1874, drawn while he was a student at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris.

Other male nudes produced while he was a student include Study of a Male Nude, 1876, above, now in the Yale University Art Gallery ...

Figure Study ...

and Male Nude Study, 1877.  The damage to the painting looks like someone folded it.

After his student work, Pascal does not seem to have painted any more male nudes.  

In the 1880s, Pascal and Gustave started sharing the same artist's studio.  Were they lovers?  Probably not.  Pascal ended up marrying Gustave's cousin Maria.

Gustave, however, never married and was probably gay.  Above, Pascal's painting Hamlet and the Grave Digger, 1883.  The models were Gustave (with the long beard) and next to him, another artist friend, Carl Ernst von Stetten.

Carl frequently served as a model for Gustave, like Gustave's painting St. Sebastian, above.  Gustave and Carl became lifelong companions and were probably lovers.  Later, during World War I, Gustave and Carl waited out the war together in Switzerland.

Gustave's work features quite a few nude or bare-chested men, but the nudes were respectably disguised as religious or mythological subjects such as Adam and Eve, above ...

or as academic figure studies, such as Académie Masculine au Lézard, enlivened by the addition of the lizard.  Carl was probably the model for both these works.

This drawing is called L’Amour (Love), a sketch for a larger painting.  The academic reference is to Cupid, the Roman god of love.  Was Courtois hinting at something else with the title?

More tantalizing was Gustave's relationship with Maurice Deriaz, seen in this photo.  Maurice, born in Switzerland in 1885, was one of seven athletic brothers.  Several became famous strongmen and weightlifters.  Maurice, known as “The Swiss Lion,” lifted a 228-pound barbell with one arm, a world record.

Maurice modeled for Gustave multiple times from at least 1907 to 1913.  This photo of Gustave's studio shows Maurice modeling, nude except for some draped cloth, while Gustave sketches him.

This sketch of Maurice is from 1911.  At upper right are the words "Se faire un chemin par la force" (make a way by force), a scholarly quotation from Virgil’s Aeneid, but also a reference to this young man who made his way in the world through his strength.

Maurice was probably the muscular model for Paradise Lost.

Maurice was definitely the model for this 1912 painting, called Hercules at the feet of Omphale.

Maurice is again featured in this 1913 painting called Perseus Rescuing Andromeda. 

We end with this 1907 painting called Portrait of the Athlete Maurice Deriaz.  The remarkable thing is that Gustave did not sell these last three paintings.  Instead, he gave them to Maurice, who kept them in his house until he died and willed them to the Swiss town of Baulmes, where they now hang in the town hall.  What was the relationship between the artist and his handsome, muscular model?  We can only guess.