Auburtin Jean François

Biography of Auburtin Jean François ( 1866-1930 )

Born in Lagny-sur-Marne in 1866, Auburtin trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he was a pupil of Jean-Paul Laurens. Very early on, he turned away from academic history painting to explore a more introspective path, nourished by poetry, music and symbolist thought. Like many of his contemporaries, he was influenced by Puvis de Chavannes, whose formal simplification, silent monumentality and moral dimension of the image he embraced.

Auburtin exhibited regularly at the Salon de la Société nationale des beaux-arts from the 1890s onwards, where his work was noted for its resolutely modern character, while remaining faithful to high standards of composition. He also took part in the great aesthetic debates of his time, particularly those concerning the synthesis of the arts. In this respect, he was close to the decorative movement and collaborated with architects in a spirit similar to that of the Nabis, without however fully adhering to their formal vocabulary. 

His painted work focused mainly on landscape, which he approached as a space of inner resonance rather than a simple transcription of reality. Under his brush, the coasts of Brittany, the shores of the Mediterranean and wooded landscapes become timeless places, bathed in light that is often twilight. Nature is silent, almost suspended, stripped of all anecdote. The human figures, when they appear, are stylised, hieratic, integrated into the overall rhythm of the composition.

Auburtin attaches paramount importance to line and the decorative structure of the surface. His deliberately limited palette favours muted harmonies and subtle accords, in a spirit close to the Wagnerian music he deeply admires. This musical dimension of his art is essential to understanding his aesthetic: according to Auburtin, painting should move the viewer through the accuracy of its internal correspondences rather than through descriptive virtuosity.

In addition to his work as a painter, Jean-François Auburtin was also a committed theorist. He published several texts in which he defended a demanding and spiritualised conception of art, hostile to naturalism and materialism, which he considered impoverishing. These writings, still cited today by art historians, testify to his intellectual role in the aesthetic renewal of the late 19th century. 

Recognised during his lifetime, Auburtin received several public and decorative commissions, notably for official buildings and private residences. After his death in 1930, his work fell into relative obscurity before being rediscovered in the 20th century by historians of French symbolism and decorative art.

Today, Jean-François Auburtin is seen as a key figure in understanding the alternative paths of French pictorial modernity, between classical tradition, symbolism and the quest for a spiritual art that is both decorative and deeply meditative.