Alexandre Cabanel

Alexandre Cabanel's paintings reflect the drawing and polished surfaces of nineteenth-century French academic practice. Mythological and literary subjects provide settings for idealized figures, while his portraits apply similar attention to pose and the modeling of faces. The Fallen Angel concentrates expression in a seated figure, while The Birth of Venus arranges a mythological subject across a broad horizontal composition. Subtle tonal changes and controlled edges give bodies volume without emphasizing brushstrokes.