First Communion in the Interior of the Crypt of the Church of St Roch, Paris
(Charles Marie Bouton)
Charles Marie Bouton (16 May 1781 in Paris – 28 June 1853), is a French painter.
He was a student of Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Victor Bertin and the first French panorama painter Pierre Prévost. He concentrated mostly on the perspective and the art of distributing light and was thus led to the invention of the Diorama, which he shares the honour with Jacques Daguerre. In 1822 Bouton and Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (inventor of the daguerreotype, an early photographic process) opened the Diorama in Paris. This scenographic entertainment included two enormous canvases, typically with one featuring a natural view and the other an architectural view, illuminated by moving, coloured lights. The strikingly realistic effects thrilled audiences. The partners painted the scenes on translucent paper or muslin and, by the careful use of changing lighting effects, were able to present vividly realistic tableaux. The views provided grand, illusionistic entertainment, and the amazing trompe l’oeil effect was purposely heightened by the accompaniment of appropriate music and the positioning of real objects, animals, or people in front of the painted scenery.
The Diorama was instantly successful and provided a direct context for paintings that Bouton exhibited regularly at the Salon. These views induces a romantic sense of yearning that is heightened through the use of deep perspective and crepuscular light.
As a painter, he has reproduced happily Souterrains de Saint-Denis, la cathédrale de Chartres, and an interior view of the church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont.
Provenance: France, until 1920’s; Private Collection, Montevideo, Uruguay, until 1994.