French painter and printmaker. He was a protégé of Gabriel-Christophe Allegrain and was taught by Joseph-Marie Vien. His own preference was for genre paintingGLOSSARYThe depiction of scenes from everyday life. Elements of everyday life had long had a role in religious works; pictures in which such elements were the subject of a painting developed in the 16th century with such artists as Pieter Bruegel. Then Carracci and Caravaggio developed genre painting in Italy, but it was in Holland in the 17th century that it became an independent form with its own major achievements, Vermeer being one of its finest exponents. in the Flemish style. In 1781 he was approved (agréé) as a member of the Académie Royale, Paris, on the basis of several works to be exhibited at that year's SalonGLOSSARYIn the French language of the 18th and 19th centuries it designated an actual exhibition space, as well as the academic art exhibitions staged in the Salon d'Apollon of the Louvre since 1667. From 1737, the exhibitions took place biennially and, after the French Revolution, annually in the Salon Carré of the Louvre in Paris. Towards the end of the 19th century the official Salon jury was dissolved in order to make way for a committee of state-approved artists, i.e. former Salon members, who created the highly influential Société des Artistes Français.; among these, the Charitable Gentleman (Paris, Galerie Cailleux) is a moralistic scene clearly inspired by Jean-Baptiste Greuze but using the technique of Isaack van Ostade. The pictures Debucourt exhibited at the Salons of 1783 and 1785 continued to draw their inspiration from Flemish art, then very popular in Paris, while remaining faithful to the realities of French peasant life. One of these works, The King's Act of Charity and Humanity (untraced; engraved in 1787 by Laurent Guyot), was accepted for exhibition in 1785 only after Debucourt had, by royal command, changed the title and made Louis XVI less easy to recognize.
Debucourt executed a few plates in mezzotintGLOSSARYmethod of copper or steel engraving in tone. A Dutch officer, Ludwig von Siegen, is given credit for the invention of mezzotint c. 1640. The process then came into prominence in England early in the 18th century. Mezzotint involves uniform burring with a curved, sawtoothed tool by cradling it back and forth until the surface of the plate presents an all-over, even grain. This yields a soft effect in the print. The picture is developed in chiaroscuro with a scraper and a burnisher, every degree of light and shade from black to white being attainable. In pure mezzotint, no line drawing is employed, the result being soft without the sharp lines of an etching. Mezzotint was often used for the reproduction of paintings, particularly, in England, for landscapes and portraits. The process is essentially extinct today. after his own designs. Most of his work was, however, in aquatintGLOSSARYAn engraving method related to etching but producing finely granulated tonal areas rather than lines. The term applies also to a print made by this method. There are several variants of the technique, but in essence the process is as follows. A metal plate is sprinkled with acid-resistant varnish, which is fused to the plate by heating, and when the plate is immersed in an acid bath the acid bites between the tiny particles of resin and produces an evenly granulated surface. The design is created by drawing on the plate with add-resistant varnish, and great variety of tone can be obtained by immersing in acid and varnishing in turn (the longer the add bites, the darker the tone). Aquatint was invented around the middle of the 18th century, and in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, was highly popular in England for reproducing watercolours (colour could be added by hand or by using several plates with different coloured inks). It has also been used as an original creative medium (sometimes in conjunction with other graphic techniques) by many distinguished artists, including Goya, Degas, Picasso, and Rouault.. He became the leading maker of multi-plate colour prints, combining washes of aquatint with line-engravingGLOSSARYA print made from a metal plate that has had a design cut into it with a sharp point. Ink is smeared over the plate and then wiped off, the ink remaining in the etched lines being transferred when the plate is pressed very firmly onto a sheet of paper.. He used a number of different techniques, but most involved three colour plates, and a fourth key plate, outlining the design in black. In addition to work from his own designs, he made aquatints after Carle Vernet.
In caricature, he might have equalled Rowlandson, the English caricaturist, if he had not been so occupied with the intricacies of colour prints; but he produced a few superb cartoons of the Paris of his day, full of caricatures of fashionable personages.
