Louis Anquetin (1861-1932)

Le rond-point des Champs-Elysées depicts two horses that rear up, surprised by an elegant lady’s poodle on a stroll by Champs-Élysées. Executed in 1889, Le rond-point des Champs-Elysées emerged at the height of Anquetin’s involvement with the Parisian avant-garde. At this time, the artist was at the heart of a dynamic circle of painters living and working in Montmartre, many of whom had met during lessons at the atelier of Fernand Cormon. Among his close friends were Émile Bernard, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Vincent van Gogh. This informal group of painters, which Van Gogh nicknamed "the painters of the petit boulevard" in discussions with his brother Theo, were united by a shared desire to move beyond Impressionism and Pointillism in their work and develop a new pictorial language and style that would accurately reflect their modern spirit. Anquetin was hailed as the leading figure within the group, admired for his technical skills, ever-evolving style, and clarity of expression among his friends—indeed, Lautrec went so far as to proclaim Anquetin the most richly gifted painter to have arrived in Paris since Edouard Manet. Amongst the most important of his contributions to the theoretical and artistic musings of the group was his development of Cloisonnism, a painterly approach marked by simplified drawing and the use of strongly outlined fields of pure color that drew its inspiration from medieval stained glass and Japanese woodblock prints.