Bosse, Abraham

(1602-1676)

   painter, engraver, theorist

   Abraham Bosse began his artistic career in his birthplace, Tours, making etchings. He eventually settled in Paris, where he met jacques callot, who introduced him to the process of making etchings (aqua fortis) on hardened varnish. using this process in a different way, Bosse sought to create the effect of an engraving. He was named professor of perspective when the Academy of Painting & Sculpture was established (1648), but stubborn and polemic, he was excluded from that body following a dispute with charles le brun on the subject of perspective in art. He then founded a free school (which the king ordered closed) and wrote numerous statements in its defense. A great part of his work (more than 1,500 plates) constitutes a document on the mores of the first half of 17th-century France; they are exceptionally varied and rich in details. His meticulous depictions reveal a rigorous and temperate mind and comfortable workmanship (La Galerie du palais; La Saignée; Les Cris de Paris). His writings, Traité des manières de graveur en taille-douce (1645) and Leçon de géométrie et de perspective pratique (1648), were popular and influential on other artists and engravers.