No One Does Rain Like Felix-Hilaire Buhot

Felix-Hilaire Buhot (July 9, 1847 – April 26, 1898) was a French painter and illustrator who was particularly adept at making aquatint, engraving, roulette and drypoint images of people in the rain. He also did lots of snow, mist and fog. But he remains arguably the best rain artist of the 19th Century.

 

Buhot was born in Normandy, orphaned at age seven and made it to Paris, where he lived around boulevard de Clichy in Montmartre and worked as a commercial artist. He began making prints in 1873, and caught the eye of Philippe Burty (6 February 1830 – 3 June 1890), a leading critic who admired Buhot’s belles épreuves (beautiful proofs).

Rejecting the popular view at the time that prints were simply copying other artworks, Burty felt that an etching had at least as much artistic value as a painting or drawing.

There was an etching revival in the 1860s and Burty saw a market for special proofs to denote rare, inked impressions printed by the artist himself and sold in limited editions. Rejecting the prevailing view at the time that prints were chiefly a means of copying other artworks, he felt that an etching had at least as much artistic value as a painting or drawing.

Buhot made his work stand out by adding marges symphoniques (symphonic margins; marginalia) filled with doodles. In the pursuit of individuality Buhot experimented with inking and papers, staining some paper with tea and using blue ink in place of the usual black.

 

Via: New York Public Library, Baltimore Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art.