The Four Seasons
Henry Picou Jean-Léon Gérôme Gustave Rodolphe Boulanger Jean-Louis Hamon
The artists who painted this work belonged to a group called the Néo-Grecs (New Greeks). They concentrated on depicting scenes of daily life in ancient Greece and Rome—often with an erotic slant. Here, relying on a popular Greco-Roman theme, the four works represent the seasons and their associated activities: the pursuit of love in spring; bathing in summer; harvesting grapes in fall; and a funerary ritual in winter. The decorative gold, black, and red borders also enhance the classical aspect of the work by recalling the painted wall decorations of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. The artists painted this work for their friend, French actor Edmond Got (1822–1901). They likely presented this picture to him in commemoration of his election to the Comédie- Francaise acting company and as a memento of their friendship.
Colors in this work
Details
- Date
- 1850
- Medium
- oil on fabric
- Dimensions
- framed: height 0.75 m, width 0.665 m, depth 0.07 m; unframed: height 0.563 m, width 0.465 m
- Origin
- France, 19th century
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Holding institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Palette
-
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- Image provider
- cleveland-museum-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Bequest of Noah L. Butkin
Art Genome Taxonomy
10 tags
Subject Matter
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Antiquity as Subject Both · 98%
The Cleveland Museum of Art identifies the subject as a Greco-Roman seasonal cycle, and the image presents figures in classically styled settings and dress.
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The Seasons Both · 99%
The catalog explicitly identifies the four scenes as spring, summer, fall, and winter; the image visibly organizes them as four seasonal panels.
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Love Both · 96%
The upper-left panel shows an intimate couple surrounded by flowers, corresponding to the catalog's description of the pursuit of love in spring.
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Bathers Both · 99%
The upper-right panel visibly shows nude figures bathing in and beside water, matching the catalog's identification of bathing as the summer activity.
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Nude Visual · 99%
Nude and partially nude bodies are prominent in the summer and fall panels and also appear in the spring scene.
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Mourning and Commemoration Both · 94%
The lower-right panel shows a darkly robed figure in a subdued, graveyard-like landscape; the catalog identifies the winter scene as a funerary ritual.
Visual Qualities
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Geometric Visual · 96%
Repeated rectilinear divisions, gold bands, black fields, red-brown accents, and small square ornaments create a strongly geometric decorative structure around the painted scenes.
Medium and Techniques
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Oil Painting Both · 99%
The work is cataloged as oil on fabric, and the image shows painted, brushworked surfaces across four integrated scenes.
Time Periods
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19th Century Art Both · 99%
The work is dated 1850 and identified as originating in France in the nineteenth century.
Geographic Regions
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French Art Metadata · 98%
The catalog identifies the artists as French and gives France, 19th century as the place of origin.
Source & rights
Henry Picou (French, 1824–1895). The Four Seasons. Cleveland Museum of Art.
High-resolution sources
- Original TIFF ↗ 4,943 × 6,000 · Cleveland Museum Of Art · Available