ピエール・ピュヴィス・ド・シャヴァンヌ

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824–1898) came to define French monumental painting in the Third Republic. Born in Lyon to a mining engineer's family, he turned to art after illness interrupted his engineering studies, studying briefly under Delacroix before finding his distinctive voice under Thomas Couture. Though his Salon debut in 1850 met rejection for eight years, he secured major public commissions during Napoleon III's rebuilding of Paris and never looked back.