Georges Michel

Born in Paris in 1763, Georges Michel was a child of romanticism (Jean-Jacques Rousseau died in 1778). Even before Paul Huet (1803-1869), Decamps (q.v.), Daumier (q.v.), and all the other painters who formed the first generation of the School of Barbizon, Michel was the first to tackle the representation of nature free of aesthetic prejudices and unencumbered by pre-established rules learned in the workshop of some prestigious teacher. Of humble origin, Michel was very precocious not only in the apprenticeship of his craft but in his private life as well. Twelve years old when he entered...