Henri Fantin-Latour
(1836 - 1904)
 

Henri Fantin-Latour was a French painter and lithographer best known for his flower paintings and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers.

In addition to his realistic paintings, Fantin-Latour created imaginative lithographs inspired by the music of some of the great classical composers. In 1876, Fantin-Latour attended a performance of the Ring cycle at Bayreuth, which he found particularly moving. He would later publish lithographs inspired by Richard Wagner in La revue wagnérienne, which helped solidify his reputation among Paris' avant-garde as an anti-naturalist painter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Fantin-Latour

Tannhäuser

1886
Oil on Canvas
86.4 x 103.3 cm
The Cleveland Museum of Art
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1916.1038

 

Tannhäuser, the male figure seated on the left, does not seem fully engaged in this merry scene. Among pale bodies and pastel hues, he alone is cast in shadow. The Wagner opera that inspired the painting centers on a struggle between profane and sacred love, and the tension between them appears embodied in the brooding Tannhäuser.