Charles Cottet, French painter, was born at Le Puy-en-Velay and died in Paris. A famed post-impressionist*, Cottet is known for his dark, evocative painting of rural Brittany and seascapes. He led a school of painters known as the Bande noire or Nubians group (for the somber palette they used, in contrast to the brighter post-impressionist paintings), and was friends with such artists as Auguste Rodin.

Cottet studied at the École des Beaux-Arts*, and under Puvis de Chavannes and Roll, while also attending the Académie Julian* (where fellow students formed Les Nabis* school of painting, with which he was later associated). He travelled and painted in Egypt, Italy, and on Lake Geneva, but he made his name with his sombre and gloomy, fi...