👉 Okay, letās tackle that wonderfully, and frankly rather pointy-sounding, mouthful ā "Artiste Peintre.ā Now, before I butcher this with a lengthy dissertation, let me preface things by sayingā¦ honestly? It basically just means, in really old-fangirled French artistic circles, an āoil painter.
(Okay, okay, I feel slightly ridiculous even spelling that out now! But stick with it, the point is...it was a title of very specific, very stuffy importance. ) 19th century France basically had this whole ornate little system for categorizing who did what to what and, crucially, how terribly pretentious they sounded while doing it. Essentially, "Artiste Peintre" meant that you were anā¦ ahem... seasoned, respected, probably slightly weary, professional oil painter. You wouldn't just splash around with acrylics! Heavens no. It implied a certain established seriousness and the kind of look-at-my-necksmanship one might get if you stared directly into the soul of a very old linseed oil can. The title itself is a mouthfulāliterally, itās roughly "Artsy Painter"āand was most frequently bestowed upon gentlemen who spent their days meticulously rendering velvet jackets on aristocratic subjects and then lamenting about the decline of the whole of civilisation whilst drinking terrible burgundy in stuffy salons. Frankly. It was as much a title of office for a very specific, rather pointed
