Jacques Élie Faure (April 4, 1873 in Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, France – October 29, 1937 in Paris) was a French doctor, art historian and essayist. He is the author of History of Art, considered a historiographical pillar in the discipline. Biography Youth and Training Élie Faure was the son of Pierre Faure, a merchant, and Zéline Reclus. He was very close to two of his uncles, namely the geographer and anarchist activist Élisée Reclus and the ethnologist Élie Reclus. In 1888, he joined his brothers Léonce and Jean-Louis in Paris and enrolled at the Lycée Henri-IV, where he had as classmates in philosophy class Léon Blum, R. Berthelot, Gustave Hervé and Louis Laloy. Passionate about painting, he often visited the Louvre and immersed himself in the works of his philosophy teacher, Henri Bergson. With his baccalaureate in hand, he enrolled in the faculty of medicine and began practicing in working-class neighborhoods in Paris. He worked as an anesthesiologist and specialized in embalming with his brother Jean-Louis, a surgeon and gynecologist. Nevertheless, he continued to attend exhibitions and regularly visited workshops of painters and sculptors. On 7 April 1896, he married Suzanne Gilard, daughter of the pastor of Eynesse. Together, they had a daughter, Elisabeth, whom his friend, the painter Eugène Carrière, sketched in 1902. On May 3, 1899, Élie Faure presented his doctoral thesis in medicine which dealt with an innovative treatment for lupus. He also publicly engaged in political battles of the time, taking sides with Dreyfus and participating in socialist movements. Art historian In 1902, Élie Faure began to publish articles in L'Aurore, a Parisian literary and socialist newspaper. He mainly wrote about his experiences of the then famous Salons (Société des Artistes Français, Société nationale des Beaux-Arts, Salon des Indépendants). During these times he met with Gustave Geffroy, Frantz and Francis Jourdain, Eugène Carrière, Antoine Bourdelle and Auguste Rodin. He was passionate about Paul Cézanne and Diego Vélasquez, to whom he devoted his first book. Between 1905 and 1909, he held a series of conferences on the history of art at La Fraternelle university in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris. He drew from the lectures the content of his main work, History of Art, first published in 1909. This monumental work, which he reworked several times, held a lyrical style and retraced the evolution of architecture, sculpture, painting and domestic arts from prehistory to the beginning of the 20th