Adolphe Monticelli

Monticelli was born in Marseille in humble circumstances. He attended the École Municipale de Dessin in Marseille from 1842 to 1846 and continued his artistic training in Paris, where he studied under Paul Delaroche at the École des Beaux-Arts. In Paris he made copies after the Old Masters in the Louvre and admired the oil sketches of Eugène Delacroix. In 1855 he met Narcisse Diaz, a member of the Barbizon school, and the two often painted together in the Fontainebleau Forest. Monticelli frequently adopted Diaz's practice of introducing nudes or elegantly costumed figures into his landscapes. His work reached its greatest spontaneity in the decade before his death in 1886. ==Legacy==

Marseille More than a century after his death, Monticelli's art is still subject to controversy. In its painterly freedom Monticelli's work prefigures that of Vincent van Gogh, who greatly admired his work after seeing it in Paris when he arrived there in 1886. Van Gogh immediately adopted a brighter palette and a bolder attack, and later remarked, "I sometimes think I am really continuing that man." In 1890, Van Gogh and his brother Theo were instrumental in publishing the first book about Monticelli. A monument honoring Monticelli, designed in 1909 by the sculptor Auguste Carli, is installed in the Palais Longchamp Marseille. ==Exhibitions==

From September 2008 until January 2009, an exhibition entitled "Van Gogh and Monticelli" took place in Marseille's Centre de la Vieille Charité, highlighting Monticelli's influence on Van Gogh's work. From April 25 until September 27, 2015, an exhibition entitled "Van Gogh and Co. Criss-crossing the collection" at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, The Netherlands, displayed paintings by Van Gogh and his predecessors, contemporaries and followers, among them François Bonvin, Charley Toorop, Henri Fantin-Latour, Jean-Baptiste Corot, Paul Cézanne, Bart van der Leck and Adolphe Monticelli. ==Gallery==

File:Monticelli - Portrait de Madame Pascal.jpg|Portrait de Madame Pascal, 1871 File:Adolphe Joseph Thomas Monticelli - Ladies in a Garden - Google Art Project.jpg|Ladies in a Garden, 1870 File:Adolphe Monticelli - Bouquet - Google Art Project.jpg|Flowers in a Blue Vase, c. 1875. Clark Art Institute File:Adolphe Monticelli - As You Like It - Google Art Project.jpg|As You Like It File:Adolphe Monticelli - Fete Champetre - Google Art Project.jpg|Fete Champetre File:Adolphe Monticelli - Flower still life - Google Art Project.jpg|Flower Still Life, 1875 File:Monticelli - Aldeia Fantástica.jpg|Seascape Near Marseille, 1880, São Paulo Museum of Art File:Monticelli - Scène de parc, femmes, enfants et chiens.jpg|Scène de parc, femmes, enfants et chiens ==Notes==