Eanger Couse attended prestigious art schools in Chicago, New York, and Paris. In Paris, he studied with the popular artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau, known for a neoclassical style inspired by ancient Greece and Rome.
 
In the late 1700s, world travel—called the Grand Tour—revived popular interest in the classical antiquity of Greece and Rome. Artists adopted subjects such as virtue, mythology, heroism, and nationalism, with figures painted in an idealized way. 
 
In the mid-1800s, Bouguereau painted in this style to great success, despite it being seen by that time as rigidly traditional. Instead, artists were using realism to depict modern life. Looking at Couse's painting, we can imagine he may have learned from Bouguereau how to paint the human body and how to use light to convey serenity.
 
Couse met his wife, Virginia, at school in Paris and afterward adopted life on her family's ranch in Washington State near the border of Oregon. Eanger and Virginia lived and worked back and forth on the west and east coasts of the United States and in France. Eventually, a visit to Taos, New Mexico led them to permanent residency there in the early 1900s. After relocating to Taos, Couse became the founding president of the Taos Society of Artists.
 
Continue reading to enjoy a reflection by Heritage and Museum Science graduate student Victoria Hutchison: 
 
The painting of Virginia sitting by the fireplace depicts a simple act of life. Couse often painted Native Americans in solitude in their homes or in natural spaces. In this painting of his wife, Couse's subject differs but conveys the same simplicity of quiet activity in a comforting and peaceful environment.
 
Another artist who painted moments of absorption in a similar artistic style is Henry Ossawa Tanner. Tanner was an African American artist from Pennsylvania, who worked in France in the late 1800s and early 1900s and painted in the European Realist style. Tanner is known for depicting the dignity of ordinary life. For example in his painting, The Thankful Poor, an African American grandfather and grandson sit at a kitchen table appearing to pray before a sparse meal. Tanner's painting, like Couse's, conveys quietude and simplicity in domestic life.
 

See an image of The Thankful Poor and learn more about Henry Ossawa Tanner and the Realist style that influenced Eanger Couse: here.
 
See Eanger Couse's typical work and learn about his Taos home: here.

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