Alfred Philip Roll

Born in Paris in 1846. Initially he was engaged in drawing ornaments and patterns, then he attended the Paris School of Fine Arts and was a student of Jerome , Bonn , Arpigny and Daubigny . He painted his first landscape in 1869.

Subsequently traveled for artistic purposes to Belgium , Holland , Munich , Vienna and Italy . The first pictures with which he spoke to the public: "Don Juan and Haidei" from Byron ( 1874 ), the war scene "Halte-là" ( 1875 ) and "The Huntress" ( 1876 ) remained barely noticed and only in 1879 did he turn on general attention when he exhibited in the Paris Salon a huge, full of truth and drama “Flooding in Toulouse” (in the Havre Museum). The success of this work made the artist understand his true vocation: he began to depict mostly episodes from the life of workers, poor people, commoners in all its ugliness, with strong, unvarnished realism, resembling the truthfulness of E. Zola in his “Rugon-Maccarax”. He became the official artist of the French government. In the 1880s, Roll discovered the artist Alfred Smith, promoting his work and helping him in his career.

Along with paintings of this kind, Roll continued, however, to write scenes of military life and fantastic scenes in which he liked to compare the nakedness of the female body with the figures of animals and with the landscape in spectacular lighting. His drawing is expressive, the color is harmonious, the reception of the letter is wide, sometimes reaching rudeness.

The most famous works:

• The Feast of Silene (1879);
• "The strike of mining workers" ( 1880 );
• "Forward!",
• "Farmer Manda Lametri",
• "Work" ( 1887 ),
• "The girl and the young bull" ( 1888 )
• Summer ( 1889 )
• "Colliers"
• "Normandy"
• “Buildings in Süren” (1885)

• Rolle, Alfred-Phillip // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : 86 tons (82 tons and 4 extra). - SPb. , 1890-1907.