Evening or Lost Illusions

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The painting Evening was exhibited at the Salon of 1843, and his contemporaries added the appropriate subtitle, as a reference to the novel by Honoré de Balzac, 'Les Illusions perdues', which had appeared that year. Gleyre's painting is a dreamlike representation of a vision he had on the bank of the Nile in 1835, as his diary shows. He depicts himself as a weary singer, whose lyre has slipped from his hand, as he no longer find words.

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About the Artist

Charles-Gabriel Gleyre

1806 – 1874

Swiss painter, active mainly in Paris, where he enjoyed a successful career, particularly with anecdotal scenes, sometimes in an antique setting, and portraits. He was a renowned teacher and when Delaroche closed down his teaching studio in 1843, the majority of his students transferred to Gleyre. He taught Whistler and several of the impressionists - Bazille , Monet , Renoir , and Sisley - and although his own paintings were conventional, he encouraged open-air painting. Renoir, however, said that his main strength as a teacher was that he left his pupils 'pretty much to their own devices'. Gleyre closed his studio in 1864 because of an eye ailment.

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