French painter. After winning the Grand Prix at the École des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse, he moved to Paris (1879) to study at the École des Beaux-Arts there under Jean-Paul Laurens, who encouraged his interest in Veronese and other Venetian painters. The literary inspiration of his early work was reflected in such paintings as Paolo de Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini in Hell (1883; Carcassonne, Musée des Beaux-Arts) based on Dante, for which he won a medal at the Salon of 1883. During his subsequent study in Rome, however, on a fellowship awarded to him at the Salon, he was attracted both by the brilliant Italian light and by the paintings of Giotto and his contemporaries. He developed his own style with its characteristic short, divisionist brush-strokes. In 1889 he received the gold medal in the Salon and became a member of the Legion of Honour. In 1895 he painted some unusually large pictures for the Neo-Impressionists and won great acclaim when he exhibited them at a one-man show at the Mancini Gallery. At the World Fair in 1900 he won the Grand prize. He was commissioned to paint some important murals for the City Hall in Paris (1895), for the Capitol in Toulouse (1903, 1906) and in Marseilles. //