Hugues Merle

Hugues Merle (1822–1881) was a French painter who mostly depicted sentimental or moral subjects. He has often been compared to William-Adolphe Bouguereau.

Hugues Merle
The First Thorns of Knowledge (Les premières épines de la science), 1864, Dallas Museum of Art
Born	(1822-04-28)April 28, 1822 La Sône, France
Died	1881 (aged 58–59) Paris, France
Nationality	French
Known for	Painting
Children	Georges Merle

Biography

Hugues Merle was born in 1822 in La Sône.^[1] He studied painting with Léon Cogniet. Merle started exhibiting at the Salon (Paris) in 1847. He received second class prizes in 1861 and 1863.^[2] In 1866 he was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.

Hugues Merle became a friend of Paul Durand-Ruel in the early 1860s. Durand-Ruel had started buying paintings by Merle in 1862 and introduced the artist to painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau.^[3] Merle was later often compared to Bouguereau and “became a considerable rival of Bouguereau in subject and treatment”.^[4] In the mid-1860s, Merle painted several portraits of Paul Durand-Ruel, his wife, and their son, John.

Hugues Merle died in 1881 in Paris. His son Georges Merle also became a painter.^[5]

Influence

David Lynch and Mark Frost's Twin Peaks TV series character the Log Lady resembles Hugues Merle's painting The Lunatic of Étretat (1871).^[6]

Gallery

• 
  Maternal Affection
• 
  The Embroidery Lesson
• 
  Tristan and Isolde
• 
  The Storyteller
• 
  Maternal Love
• 
  Thoughts of the Future
• 
  Mother and Child, c. 1864. Clark Art Institute
• 
  Romeo and Juliet
• 
  L'abandonnée
• 
  Les Orphelines
• 
  Saint Elizabeth of Hungary
• 
  Mother and Child, c. 1869. Clark Art Institute

References

1. (in French)Mairie de La Sône, registre année 1822, naissance, n°5 (Michaël Vottero, « Hugues Merle (1822-1881) Peinture de genre et marché de l'art sous le Second Empire », Bulletin de la société de l'histoire de l'art français, 2011, p. 145-216, note 2).
2. Zafran, Eric (1984). European Art in the High Museum.
3. Whiteley, Linda (1979). Accounting for Tastes. Oxford Art Journal. p. 26.
4. Stranahan, C.H. (1917). A History of French Painting. p. 398.
5. Birmingham Museum of Art (2010). Birmingham Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection. London: Giles. p. 142. ISBN 978-1-904832-77-5. Archived from the original on 2011-09-10. Retrieved 2011-06-27.
6. "MacGuffin | Log Lady".

Bibliography

• European Art in the High Museum, by Eric M. Zafran, Atlanta, 1984
• "Accounting for Tastes", by Linda Whiteley, Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 2, Art and Society (Apr., 1979), pp. 25–28

Media related to Hugues Merle at Wikimedia Commons