Gaston de la Touche

Private Collection, Fribourg

Without doubt the most single important influence on La Touche was that of Félix Bracquemond and Édouard Manet who largely persuaded the artist to abandon his sombre palette in favour of the spectrum of colour, resulting in a shift from realism to that of an ethereal serenity. After 1890 there was a radical shift in both subject matter and application of paint whereby he experimented with feathery brush strokes, each of a different shade, reminiscent of the works of Edgar Degas and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. La Touche exhibited regularly at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts alongside prominent artists such as Aflred Sisley and Henri Fantin-Latour.