Squaring Logs (Homme que fend des buches)
1826 to 1850
Medium
etching and drypoint in brown ink
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of George Matthew Adams in memory of his mother, Lydia Havens Adams
Accession Number
1952.10.74
Art Historical Context
**Squaring Logs (Homme fend des bûches by Alphonse Leg captures the raw physicality rural labor in 19-century France. Created between 1826 and 1850 using etching and drypoint in warm brown ink, this print depicts a woodsman intently splitting logs, embodying the Realism movement Legros championed alongside artists like Gustave Courbet. Born in France in 1837, Legros bridged French and British art scenes, later becoming a professor at the Slade School in London, he elevated printmaking as a fine art form accessible to wider audiences. The etching technique—where acid etches lines into a metal ...
About the Artist
Alphonse Legros · 1837–1911
Alphonse Legros (1837–1911) was born in Dijon, France, and trained in Paris at the drawing school of Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, whose unconventional teaching method — which emphasised memory drawing and acute observation over academic convention — would leave a lasting mark on Legros's practice. At Lecoq's school he formed friendships with Jules Dalou and Auguste Rodin that endured throughout hi...