Diaz de la Peña, Narciso Virgilio

Diaz de la Peña, Narciso Virgilio (dyäs də lä pānyä`), 1808–76, French landscape and figure painter of the Barbizon school, b. Bordeaux, of Spanish parents. Mainly self-taught, he was influenced by Delacroix and Théodore Rousseau. He used a heavy, worked-over impasto, and the flickering light of his landscapes influenced Renoir's work. Collections of his paintings are in the Louvre, the Museum of Reims, and the Metropolitan Museum (which has A Clearing in the Forest of Fontainebleau). His Courtesans and Descent of the Bohemians are at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and his Valley Marsh at the Cincinnati Art Museum.

Bibliography

See R. L. Herbert, Barbizon Revisited (1962).