School of Art - Theses

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Louis Buvelot: his life and work

Gray, Jocelyn ( 1977)

This study deals with the life and work of Abram-Louis Buvelot. Documents in Switzerland, Brazil and Australia have been examined in order to give a degree of precision and elucidation to the artist’s biography. Known example of paintings and drawings from his Swiss and Brazilian years together with related documentation have been examined in order to place Buvelot’s pre-Australian work within the context of mid-nineteenth century Swiss and Brazilian art. Buvelot has never been in any sense a contentious artist, nor has the high reputation which he earned for himself in Melbourne during the 1870’s ever been challenged. It is not challenged in this study but its justification is demonstrated and conformed. Had Buvelot remained in Switzerland, a follower of the Neuchatel plain air school, he would never have risen beyond the rank of ‘second rate’ as a landscape painter. The human as well as the aesthetic interest of Buvelot’s life and work is to be found in the fact of the artistic excellence which he achieved in Australia in his late middle age.