Léon-Jean-Bazille Perrault (20 June 1832, Poitiers - 1908, Royan) was a French painter. Léon-Jean-Bazille Perrault was a mid-nineteenth century artist who preoccupied himself with the treatment of subjects that reinforced the affluent bourgeoisie in their desire to have beautiful pictures adorning their homes. Inspired by his teachers, François-Édouard Picot and William-Adolphe Bouguereau, master painters of the academic style of the nineteenth-century, Perrault continued emphasizing mythology and idealization found in their compositions, in his own paintings. In following these two painters, Perrault was also showing his reverence for eighteenth century painters such as Jean-Antoine Watteau and François Boucher who also idealized their subjects. His earliest training was under François-Édouard Picot, but later studied under his friend William-Adolphe Bouguereau. While many highlight the fact that Perrault was a student of Bouguereau, this may have been more so on a basis of their amicable relationship as in the majority of his Salon entries, Perrault lists Picot as his master. Perrault may have worked alongside Bouguereau and been inspired by him, but Picot was his formal teacher. Perrault’s public career began during the period of the Second Empire, a time heavily influenced by the trauma of the 1848 social and political uprising which saw the July Monarchy and the despotic leader Louis-Philippe driven from power. In consequence, the bourgeois public sought freedom in works that displayed a frivolous sense of beauty, offering them some respite from the tumultuous past. Perrault’s images satisfied this public craving for delicate compositions, and they often focused on mythological scenes, but also children, nudes, some genre scenes, and even military scenes. But he found fame with those pictures that showed a delicate and idealized version of life, exactly those pictures which found a large audience. In appealing to the bourgeoisie, Perrault was providing subject matter that was also very popular with Salon jurors. He made his debut at the Salon of 1861 with Le Vieillard et les Trois Jeunes Hommes (The Old Man and the Three Young Men). In 1864 he was given his first recompense for his work, an honorable mention for La Frayeur (The Fright). He also earned a second-class medal in 1876 for St. Jean le Précurseur (Saint John the Precursor) and L’Oracle des Champs; -idylle (The Oracles of the Fields-Idyll). Each of these works appealed to the aesthetic sensibility of the Second Empire public. Perrault continued to exhibit at the Salons until the end of his career. In 1887 he was awarded France’s high honor and named Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur. At the Expositions Universelles of 1889 and 1900, he received a bronze and silver medal, respectively. He also exhibited in Vienna, London, Boston, and Philadelphia and won numerous medals in these exhibitions, and was later appointed – in 1873 - to represent France as "Diplômât d'honneur" to Vienna, Philadelphia and London. He also became a member of the Société des Artistes Français and by the end of his career was “hors concours” at the Salon, allowing him to exhibit freely without the necessity of submitting work for jury acceptance. He died in 1908 in Royan.
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