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Guigou was a French painter born on 15 February 1834 into a family of landowners. Guigou became a notary’s clerk at Apt, Vaucluse, in 1851 and then in 1854 at Marseille. Guigou learnt to paint from Camp, a teacher at the school in Apt, and then at Marseille from Émile Loubon [1809–1863], director of the local École des Beaux-Arts, who urged him to paint directly from nature. Guigou settled in Marseille in 1854, where he participated regularly in the annual Salon of the Société Artistique des Bouches-du-Rhône. Guigou painted almost exclusively Provençal landscape paintings, which were influenced by the oil paintings of the Barbizon painters, who exhibited in Marseille, and by the brownish tones and picturesque figures of Loubon’s paintings. The Road to Gineste (1859) and The Washerwoman (1860) reflect the independent tradition of Provençal painting during the Second Empire, which was characterized by warm coloring and precise lighting used to separate and distinguish forms. Guigou's knowledge of the paintings of Gustave Courbet, acquired during a visit to Paris in 1859, doubtless increased his liking for broad technique and sincere vision, articulated in a strong and ordered construction of space: for example,the painting The Gorges of the Lubéron (1861). |
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