This article is about the painting technique. For metalworking, see Repoussé and chasing.
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In two-dimensional works of art, such as painting, printmaking, photography or bas-relief, repoussoir (French:[ʁəpuswaʁ], pushing back) is an object along the right or left foreground that directs the viewer's eye into the composition by bracketing (framing) the edge. It became popular with Mannerist and Baroque artists, and is found frequently in Dutch seventeenth-century landscape paintings. Jacob van Ruisdael, for example, often included a tree along one side to enclose the scene (see illustration). Figures are also commonly employed as repoussoir devices by artists such as Paolo Veronese, Peter Paul Rubens and Impressionists such as Gustave Caillebotte.[1]
Examples of repoussoir
Jacob Isaaksz. van Ruisdael, The Jewish Cemetery (1655–60, oil on canvas, 141 x 182.9 cm). The tree in the right-foreground of Ruisdael's painting is an example of repoussoir that pushes the viewer's eye into the composition.
The Four Philosophers (c. 1615. Oil on panel; 167 x 143 cm, Pitti Palace, Florence). In his friendship portrait of himself, his brother Philip Rubens, Justus Lipsius and Jan van den Wouwer (left to right), the painter Rubens's self-portrait on the left is an example of a figural repoussoir that is further accentuated by the flowing red curtain.
Gustave Caillebotte. Paris Street; Rainy Day (1877, Art Institute of Chicago). The rear-facing man on the right with the tilted umbrella is an example of repoussoir figure leading the viewer's gaze into the composition.
Georges Seurat, Gray Weather, Grande Jatte (1888, 71 × 66 cm, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art). In a similar manner to the van Ruisdael piece, the tree that takes up the entire right edge of this work is an example of repoussoir.[2]
^Wind, Edgar (October 1938). "The revolution of history painting". Journal of the Warburg Institute. 2 (2): 117. doi:10.2307/750085. JSTOR 750085. S2CID 195030759. He fulfils the function of a 'repoussoir',and by leading the imagination into a distant land,effectively offsets the shock of seeing the hero die in a modern uniform.
^Foa, Michelle; Seurat, Georges (2015). George Seurat: the art of vision. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. pp. 105–107. ISBN 978-0-300-20835-1.
works of art, such as painting, printmaking, photography or bas-relief, repoussoir (French: [ʁəpuswaʁ], pushing back) is an object along the right or left...
of the main victim, peeping fearfully towards the soldiers, acts as a repoussoir at the back of the central group. Without distracting from the intensity...
1810, to much controversy and criticism. The composition notably lacks a repoussoir—a framing device that leads the viewer's gaze into the image. Rather,...
the common use of curtains to protect paintings. Even more common, the repoussoir appears in 25, with Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, one of three...
of Smeerenburg in 1639. Compositional formulae using elements like the repoussoir were evolved which remain influential in modern photography and painting...
well-known self-portrait by Rubens. The tapestry and the chair, both repoussoirs, lead the viewer into the painting. As in The Allegory of Faith, the...
foreground to increase the depth of field of the overall painting—is called a repoussoir. Caravaggio often used this technique, and Vermeer probably learned it...
Space Magritte has introduced several of these types of manipulation. The repoussoir effect of the amorphic grey structure surrounding the figures frames the...
a bright grey strip at the bottom of the painting. The hand acts as a repoussoir that provides the illusion that the medallion is in another level within...
49–70. PDF. Reymond, Rhonda L. "Looking In: Albert A. Smith's Use of 'Repoussoir' in Cover Illustrations for the Crisis and Opportunity". American Periodicals...
the foreground is well modeled in the light, with neither gimmick nor repoussoir." Although the painting received a considerable amount of approval from...
ice sometimes form profiles of human-like faces, most pronounced in the repoussoir of ice on the left. As described by Carr, there are also intentional "vague...
mid-1640s often feature a diagonal slope of land, a tree which functions as a repoussoir, and figures accompanied by horses. Over the next thirty years he developed...
Siq, is even closer to the description in the novel. Macartney used a repoussoir to create depth on all covers, but never to such effect as here. Thirteen...
self-portraiture for van Eyck. As in the van Eyck, the figures act as examples of repoussoir, in that they draw our attention to the picture's underlying theme – the...
composition draws the viewer's gaze into the background by having two large repoussoir elements at each side, where one is very close at hand, and the other...
subjects within a Mannerist three-color, schematic landscape bracketed by repoussoir trees. However, during the 1620s and 1630s his landscapes become increasingly...
repoussoir style of painted landscapes as a matter of taste. The picturesque Pembroke Castle, South Wales, 1854, with Romantic ruins The repoussoir Monastery...
painted wooded landscapes populated with small figures, bracketed by strong repoussoir trees. As was common in Antwerp artist circles in the 17th century Gijsbrecht...
the three-colour world landscape in which the figures are bracketed by repoussoir trees. His palette at the time exaggerated the brown foreground and the...
Site. Reymond, Rhonda L. (2010). "Looking in: Albert A. Smith's Use of "Repoussoir" in Cover Illustrations for the "Crisis" and "Opportunity"". American...
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Jacob Isaaksz. van Ruisdael, The Jewish Cemetery (1655–60, oil on canvas, 141 x 182.9 cm). The tree in the right-foreground of Ruisdael's painting is an example of repoussoir that pushes the viewer's eye into the composition.
The Four Philosophers (c. 1615. Oil on panel; 167 x 143 cm, Pitti Palace, Florence). In his friendship portrait of himself, his brother Philip Rubens, Justus Lipsius and Jan van den Wouwer (left to right), the painter Rubens's self-portrait on the left is an example of a figural repoussoir that is further accentuated by the flowing red curtain.
Gustave Caillebotte. Paris Street; Rainy Day (1877, Art Institute of Chicago). The rear-facing man on the right with the tilted umbrella is an example of repoussoir figure leading the viewer's gaze into the composition.![Georges Seurat, Gray Weather, Grande Jatte (1888, 71 × 66 cm, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art). In a similar manner to the van Ruisdael piece, the tree that takes up the entire right edge of this work is an example of repoussoir.[2]](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/59/Gray_Weather%2C_Grand_Jatte_%281888%29_-_Georges_Seurat_%28Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art%29.jpg/384px-Gray_Weather%2C_Grand_Jatte_%281888%29_-_Georges_Seurat_%28Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art%29.jpg)
Georges Seurat, Gray Weather, Grande Jatte (1888, 71 × 66 cm, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art). In a similar manner to the van Ruisdael piece, the tree that takes up the entire right edge of this work is an example of repoussoir.[2]
![Georges Seurat, Gray Weather, Grande Jatte (1888, 71 × 66 cm, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art). In a similar manner to the van Ruisdael piece, the tree that takes up the entire right edge of this work is an example of repoussoir.[2]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/59/Gray_Weather%2C_Grand_Jatte_%281888%29_-_Georges_Seurat_%28Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art%29.jpg/384px-Gray_Weather%2C_Grand_Jatte_%281888%29_-_Georges_Seurat_%28Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art%29.jpg)