At a young age, Jacques Barthélemy Appian, who changed his first name to Adolphe, began his studies at the École de Dessin et Beaux-Arts in Lyons, which specialized in training artists to decorate luxury fabrics produced by the local silk industry. There he met his teacher, landscape painter Jean-Michel Grobon (1770-1853). Grobon certainly influenced Appian's shift toward the study of nature. Appian's career as a painter began in 1851, when three of his works were exhibited at the Lyons Salon. The following year he settled in Crémieu, a small fortified town in the Dauphiné, where he painted picturesque sites of the region, including views of Optevoz. He met and became friends with Corot (q.v.) and Daubigny (q.v.), whom he recognized as his true teachers. From 1853 he exhibited almost continuously, not only in the Salons of Paris and Lyons but in numerous towns all over France: paintings, charcoal drawings, and prints exclusively devoted to landscapes. In 1854 he made his first excursion to the forest of Fontainebleau, where he would return throughout the following years. He traveled around France but always returned to Crémieu. In 1861 Appian settled in Creys, located twenty-five kilometers from Crémieu and ten kilometers from Morestel. In 1863 he became an active member of the new Société des Aquafortistes founded by Alfred Cadart in 1862. Appian exhibited two works at the 1866 Paris Salon, one of which was bought by Princess Mathilde and the other by the emperor. Two years later he was awarded the gold medal at the Paris Salon, which truly established his reputation. For twenty years, begin-ning in 1871, Appian frequently spent time on the Mediterranean coast, from Collioure to San Remo, visiting Sète, Martigues, Toulon, Carqueiranne, Nice, Beaulieu, Monaco, Menton, and Bodighera and painting in all of these places. Sometimes he traveled as far as Venice and Chioggia, where he found inspiration for several paintings as well. His palette grew lighter. The chorus of grays and greens of the Dauphiné and Bugey paintings is followed by an increasingly golden harmony, enhanced by purer tones. Appian was awarded the gold medal at the Exposition Interna-tionale of Lyons in 1894, but the last few years of his life were not happy ones. His paintings no longer sold and his only son, Louis, a painter as well, died in 1896. Such was the end of a long and mostly successful career. In the nineteenth cen-tury art critics often preferred Appian's charcoal drawings and prints to his paintings, which they found rushed and lacking in finish. His works were pub-lished in several journals, such as Gazette des Beaux-Arts, La revue du Lyonnais, Le Fusain, and Paris Salon.
