page_title: Paul Biva
section_title: Œuvre
hierarchical_section_title: Paul Biva / Œuvre
context_page_description: Paul Biva was a French painter. His paintings, both Realist, Naturalist in effect, principally represented intricate landscape paintings or elaborate flower settings, much as the work of his older brother, the artist Henri Biva. Paul Biva was a distinguished member of National Horticultural Society of France from 1898 until his untimely death two years later.
context_section_description: His artistic legacy mixes the baroque tradition of Dutch still lifes, the simplicity of Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699–1779), rediscovered at the time by the artistic community, and the energy of painters Realist painting after the biennial Salon of 1850. Thereafter, Paul Biva became sensitive to Impressionist movement of the 1870s.
  The influence of the artistic environment in Montmartre also played a vital role, as expressed by André Roussard:
  From Romanticism of the 1830s to Surrealism of the 1820s, we can state that Montmartre was at the origin, or at least involved in the creative period of the various successive movements. And especially, from 1850 to 1914, assembled here was an ensemble of painters and artists, poets, writers and musicians unparalleled in history, who revolutionized the arts and particularly the Fine arts. They lived in an artistic atmosphere and intellectual ferment which undoubtedly will never exist again with such intensity.
  From Biva's first exhibition at the Salon des artistes français of 1878 until his death, the works of Paul Biva had been recognized and appreciated by the public and critics, as evidenced by articles commenting on the numerous exhibitions in which he participated.
  Whereas his brother Henri Biva focused primarily on landscapes representing the western suburbs of Paris in the plein-air tradition, Paul Biva's favorite subjects were flowers, especially roses and peonies in full bloom. He paid great attention to the subtly nuanced variations of direct and reflected light on flower petals, while using vivid contrasts to highlight the expressive colors of his subject matter.
  M. Paul Biva, landscape artist with a particular preference for flowers, was in the genre one of the most skilled and brightest artists of our time; his colorations are always, without ever exceeding the threshold of the natural world, vivid and explosive [éclatantes], and his motifs harmoniously composed [...] many landscapes of always fresh tonality, flowers and fruits, are highly acclaimed and sought after by collectors. (Bulletin des Sociétés artistiques de l’est, 1900)
  Aside from his paintings, the illustrative skills of Paul Biva are revealed in his drawings that he realized for the illustrated catalogs of the Salon des artistes français between 1878 and 1901.
caption: Paul Biva, A basket of roses (Fresh from the garden), oil on canvas, 73.1 x 92.6 cm
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2013:12:11 22:02:10", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7426", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1295", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1027"}