Gothic Chapel
Charles Marie Bouton
Date unknown · Oil on canvas · European Paintings
In 1822 Bouton and Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (inventor of the daguerreotype, an early photographic process) opened the Diorama in Paris. This scenographic entertainment included two enormous canvases, typically with one featuring a natural view and the other an architectural view, illuminated by moving, colored lights. The strikingly realistic effects thrilled audiences. The Diorama was instantly successful and provided a direct context for paintings like this one that Bouton exhibited regularly at the Salon. In the absence of any ostensible narrative, this imagined view induces a romantic sense of yearning that is heightened through the use of deep perspective and crepuscular light.
- Artist
- Charles Marie Bouton
- Date
- Date unknown
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Department
- European Paintings
- Credit line
- The Whitney Collection, Promised Gift of Wheelock Whitney III, and Purchase, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. McVeigh, by exchange, 2003
