François Diday (Swiss 1802-1877) Painting

Artist: François Diday (Swiss 1802-1877) Attributed.
Title: The Oak and the Reed.
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Image Size: Height 29 cm x Width 42.5 cm.
Framed Size: Height 44.5 cm x Width 58.5 cm x Depth 8 cm.
Condition: Good, the painting has been cleaned with some previous areas of retouching. The canvas has been previously mounted onto board and then mounted to the canvas. It is glazed with anti-reflective UV-resistant Museum Glass.
Provenance: Private Collection Sussex England.

About: François Diday is considered the leader of Genevan Romanticism. Born in 1802 in Geneva which was then part of France, he began his artistic apprenticeship at age eleven under Abraham Constantin and completed his studies at Geneva’s Drawing Academy. Diday learned the craft of painting landscapes by exploring the countryside and copying paintings from various public collections.

Diday was known to create copies of his successful works, totalling over five. These works were either direct duplicate reproductions at various sizes or variations/aspects of a successful composition. This was a practice that would serve Diday well as a source of income and as a valid teaching tool as an art teacher after 1829, his most notable student was Alexandre Calame (1810-1864).

The Oak and the Reed attributed to François Diday is a duplicate painted to a smaller scale of the same-titled work now held in the National Museum of Art History, Geneva. It is a dramatic painterly account of a fable of Aesop, the moral of “The Oak and the Reed” is that “Sometimes it's wiser to be flexible in the face of life's challenges than stubbornly resisting and refusing to yield when it's the better choice.” The Oak tree, despite being strong, is broken into two pieces by the wind.

This painting became significant in establishing the face of 19th-century Swiss landscape painting and helped raise the profile of Genevan artists.