James Tissot: The Complete Story
James Tissot painted Victorian society in silk, lost the woman he loved to tuberculosis, tried to reach her through seances, and spent his last decade illustrating the Bible in 365 gouaches that crowds knelt in front of. Few careers swerve harder.
Degas asked him to join the first Impressionist exhibition. He said no, got rich instead, and then walked away from all of it.
James Tissot at a glance:
1836: born Jacques Joseph Tissot in Nantes, to a drapery merchant and a hat designer: fabric was the family language.
1871: leaves Paris after the Commune's fall and lands in London with, by legend, a hundred francs.
1874: Degas saves him a place in the first Impressionist exhibition; selling well, he declines.
1885: launches La Femme à Paris, fifteen canvases of Parisian women, and abandons it after a vision in Saint-Sulpice.
1902: dies in a Burgundy abbey, his Bible project complete and touring to crowds.
Nantes, Paris, and the fashionable eye
Tissot was born in Nantes on October 15, 1836, to a family in the drapery trade, which explains how precisely he painted fabric all his life.
In Paris he trained beside Degas and Whistler, both lifelong friends, and by the 1860s his scenes of modern women had made him prosperous.
When Degas invited him into the first Impressionist show in 1874, Tissot declined and kept selling.
London, 1871: richer than ever
After the Paris Commune collapsed in 1871, Tissot moved to London and conquered it.
His champagne picnics, shipboard flirtations, and women in striped muslin sold so well that he bought a villa in St John's Wood with a conservatory and a pond.
Ruskin sniffed that the paintings were mere colored photographs of vulgar society, which did nothing to slow the sales.
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Kathleen Newton, and the seances
In 1876 Tissot met Kathleen Newton, an Irish divorcee who moved into the villa with her children and became the face of nearly everything he painted. She died of tuberculosis in November 1882, at 28.
Tissot left London within days and never lived there again. Back in Paris he attended seances trying to reach her, and in 1885 painted the apparition he believed he saw.
The myth of the frivolous dressmaker
The painter of flounces is easy to dismiss, and critics did. Then, in 1885, after a vision in the church of Saint-Sulpice, Tissot turned entirely to scripture.
He traveled to Palestine in 1886 and again in 1889 to draw the land itself, and spent ten years on about 365 gouaches of the Life of Christ, published in 1896 to enormous success.
Viewers wept and knelt at the Paris exhibition, and the fashion painter ended as the era's most trusted eye on the Bible.
Brooklyn's coup, and where to see him
In 1900 the Brooklyn Museum bought the entire Life of Christ series by public subscription, and it remains the largest Tissot holding anywhere.
The Musee d'Orsay, the Tate, and the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Nantes hold the society pictures. Tissot died at the Chateau de Buillon on August 8, 1902, mid-way through illustrating the Old Testament.
The Commune problem
Why he left Paris in 1871 stayed deliberately vague: he had fought in the city's defense, and when the Commune fell, suspected sympathies made London attractive.
He arrived nearly broke and was rich within two years, painting the society that emigration and empire had packed into the same drawing rooms.
Degas never quite forgave the refusal of 1874. The letters cooled, and one of the sharpest friendships in French painting faded over success.
Etchings and enamels
Tissot ran a second career in drypoint: prints of Kathleen and the Thames sold in editions priced like small paintings.
He also made cloisonné enamels in the Japanese taste, vases and plaques from his own models: the fashionable eye applied to metal and fire.
Print collectors and enamel collectors rarely meet the painting public, so parts of Tissot remain obscure in plain sight.
Fifteen women, one interruption
La Femme à Paris, begun in 1885, was industrial in ambition: fifteen large canvases of the Parisienne at circus, shop and salon, with etchings and commissioned texts to follow.
Researching a church scene inside Saint-Sulpice, he had the vision that turned the last fifteen years toward the Bible.
The series stopped mid-stride, prints unmade. The most fashionable project of his life was interrupted by its own final painting.
The James Tissot questions that keep coming up
Who was Kathleen Newton? An Irish divorcee who lived with Tissot from 1876 and modeled for most of his London work. Her death from tuberculosis in 1882, at 28, ended his English decade in a week.
Why did Tissot paint the Bible? After a vision during mass at Saint-Sulpice in 1885. He researched on the ground in Palestine and treated the project as documentary work, not decoration.
Where can I see Tissot? The Brooklyn Museum for the 365 Life of Christ gouaches, the Musee d'Orsay and the Tate for the society scenes, and Nantes, his birthplace.
Was Tissot an Impressionist? No. He was invited by Degas into the first Impressionist exhibition of 1874 and refused, preferring polished finish and commercial success.
What was his real name? Jacques Joseph Tissot. He traded it for James to court the London market, and played the English gentleman so well the English half believed him.
How much does a Tissot cost? London-period canvases bring millions when they surface. The Brooklyn Bible gouaches, bought by public subscription in 1900, are effectively priceless as a set.
More secrets to unlock
Designing heaven for the movies
When Hollywood began filming the Bible, art directors reached for Tissot: his gouaches shaped the look of biblical epics from the silent era to The Ten Commandments. The painter of Victorian picnics ended up designing heaven for the movies.
