Jules Leon Montigny Biography
Jules Montigny was an artist born in 1847 in Belgium, best known for his activity as a painter. He attended the Brussels Academy, where he studied at the studio of Henri-Joseph Dillens. Montigny joined the Tervuren School, which can be considered the Belgian counterpart of the French Barbizon School of landscape painting. In 1864, Camille Van Camp and Hippolyte Boulenger met in Tervuren and formed an artists' colony, which was joined by other important painters including Jules Montigny himself. These artists broke with the tradition of academic painting, opting for greater inspiration from the surrounding nature, working en plein air and developing in the direction of impressionism. Montigny loved to immortalize landscapes, scenes with horses and cattle and the image of farmers in their field. His works reflect the serenity and, at times, the melancholy that he harbored. In particular, Montigny favored the effects of rain, the puddles that were created on the roads in the fields, the night's rest and the freshness of autumn mornings. The Belgian painter died in February 1899.
