The principal home for early French painting is the Louvre, which has works from the l500s through the early 1800s.
-----------------------Last half of 1400s-----------------------
Renaissance Period
Although architecture, sculpture, and interior decoration reached a high degree of sophistication during the early Renaissance period, not many painters were active in France, and most of those were anonymous or nearly unknown.
Jean Fouquet, c. 1415-20 to 1478-81
He developed the International Gothic style, which incorporated the Flemish influence as well as the innovations of the Italian early Renaissance artists.
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| Jean Fouquet, c. 1415-20 to 1478-81 Charles VII of France, 1403-1461 Photo by Dan L. Smith |
Jean Hey, active from 1482—died after 1504
Jean Hey was an Early Netherlandish painter working in France.
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| Jean Hey. active from 1482—died after 1504 Portrait of Madeleine de Bourgogne being presented to Sainte Madeleine, c. 1490-1495 Photo by Dan L. Smith |
--------------------------------1500s--------------------------------
Francis I, who reigned from 1515 to 1547, was an enthusiastic patron of the arts who was impressed by the art of Renaissance Italy. His influence stimulated the growth of painting in France.
He founded the royal art collection by patronizing Italian artists.
Leonardo's output was not great in his final years, but he brought the Mona Lisa and a few other great paintings with him, and they ended up in the royal collection, now located in the Louvre.
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| Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1780-1867 Francis I Receiving Leonardo da Vinci's Last Breath Petite Palace / Internet |
School of Fontainebleau
Francis I got the School of Fontainebleau going when he rebuilt and expanded the Château de Fontainebleau, which is located in a large forest not far from Paris.
For the château's interior decoration, he invited Rosso Fiorentino, a Florentine artist, to supervise a group of Italian artists on an extensive program of painting and sculpture for the walls and ceilings.
Their Italianate style is known as the School of Fontainebleau.
Dan and I actually drove out to Fontainebleau and toured the Château so that we could see its art in place. Here's a link for my article on that day: Château de Fontainebleau
Key Points in the 1400s and 1500s:
Painting was not an important art in France in the 1400s and 1500s.
Two painters from the 1400s who are still known are Jean Fouquet and Jean Hey.
François I kicked off a Renaissance in French painting by importing skilled artists and craftsmen from Italy to decorate his palaces.
The School of Fontainebleau is the movement started by the artists working for François I.
The 1600s saw an impressive flowering of painting in France, and several artists rose to fame.
Simon Vouet, 1590-1649
Simon Vouet was the dominant force in French painting in the 1630s and 1640s, at the height of the Baroque period.
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| School of Fontainebleau, 1530-1610 Portrait of Gabrielle d'Estrées and One of Her Sisters, 1594 |
- The painting above portrays Gabrielle d'Estrées, the mistress of King Henry IV, on the right, and one of her sisters, pinching her breast. This gesture is generally taken as a symbol of Gabrielle's pregnancy with the king's illegitimate child.
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| School of Fontainebleau, 1530-1610 Toilette of Venus Photo by Dan L. Smith |
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| School of Fontainebleau, 1530-1610 Mythological Allegory, c. 1580 |
Dan and I actually drove out to Fontainebleau and toured the Château so that we could see its art in place. Here's a link for my article on that day: Château de Fontainebleau
Key Points in the 1400s and 1500s:
Painting was not an important art in France in the 1400s and 1500s.
Two painters from the 1400s who are still known are Jean Fouquet and Jean Hey.
François I kicked off a Renaissance in French painting by importing skilled artists and craftsmen from Italy to decorate his palaces.
The School of Fontainebleau is the movement started by the artists working for François I.
--------------------------------1600s--------------------------------
The Baroque Period
The 1600s saw an impressive flowering of painting in France, and several artists rose to fame.
Simon Vouet, 1590-1649
He trained in Italy, where he absorbed the techniques of Italian artists.
Georges de La Tour, 1593-1652
Georges de la Tour was very strongly influenced by Caravaggio, a contemporary Italian painter known for his dramatic, high contrast lighting effects.
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| Simon Vouet, 1590-1649 Saint Guillaume d’Aquitaine, 1627 |
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| Simon Vouet, 1590-1649 Allegory of Wealth, 1630-35 |
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| Simon Vouet, 1590-1649 The Virgin with the Oak Branch, c. 1645 |
Georges de La Tour, 1593-1652
Georges de la Tour was very strongly influenced by Caravaggio, a contemporary Italian painter known for his dramatic, high contrast lighting effects.
He also adopted some of Caravaggio's subjects, as well as his franker approach to realism.
Nicolas Poussin, 1594-1650
Nicolas Poussin treated classical stories in the French Baroque style; he spent most of his working life in Rome.
His works generally depict a landscape with structures, strong daylight effects, and some sort of mythological story.
He had a great deal of influence on the development of landscape painting.
Philippe de Champaigne, 1602-1674
Philippe de Champaigne was born in Belgium, but he worked in France most of his life and developed a French style of painting.
François Boucher, 1703-1770
Boucher is known for over-the-top paintings: exquisitely pretty and decorative, mildly titillating and totally frivolous.
He studied in Rome; one of his teachers there was Panini, who specialized in architecture.
Robert could paint contemporary architecture as well, and in 1796 he created a pair of works that display that ability along with a dystopian sense of humor. The first painting is a view of the Grand Gallery of the Louvre Museum, which was already legendary among artists as a place to study the masters.
The next painting is an imaginary view of this same gallery in ruins, a very modern train of thought.
Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825
Jacques-Louis David was the giant of the Neoclassical style, a style that tended toward austerity and severity, balanced composition, invisible brushstrokes, and firm contours.
He revived interest in grand paintings showing historical or mythological scenes.
David was also a formidable portraitist.
One marvelous aspect of the late 1700s is that several women artists created successful careers. Although they were popular in their time, after their deaths, their work was long neglected or attributed to male artists, typically their teachers. In recent decades, new research has re-discovered these women and gradually corrected the attribution of their paintings. The Louvre was showing work by three of them: Anne Vallayer-Coster, Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard.
Anne Vallayer-Coster, 1744-1818
Anne Vallayer-Coster was admitted to the Royal Academy in 1770, at the age of 26, a real ground-breaker. She was best known for her paintings of flowers.
Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, 1755-1842
Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun was a big star of portrait painting in her own time, and continues to be very popular. She was very prolific, and her work may be seen in many museums.
All of her work was portraiture for royal or aristocratic patrons, and she generally idealized and romanticized their image. She excelled at concocting colorful costumes, and her ability to convey the texture of fabric was uncanny.
Her sweet palette and light touch relate her work to the Rococo style, but her figures have the solidity, the clear light, and the traditional poses of Neoclassical portraiture.
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, 1749-1803
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard was admitted to the Royal Academy in 1783, on the same day as Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, and she also specialized in portraits.
For a long time she was considered less talented than Vigée-Lebrun, but she was more versatile and truer to reality, so esteem for her work is growing. Her skill is very convincingly demonstrated in this portrait of her teacher.
Key Points of the Neo-classical era:
Hubert Robert was popular for his depictions of Roman ruins.
Jacques-Louis David was the greatest artist of the Neo-Classical period.
There was a flowering of women artists during the late 1700s.
The most popular and productive woman artist of the period was Élisabeth Vigée LeBrun, who painted portraits of royalty.
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard was a very talented portrait artist who managed to survive the era of royalty into the Republican era.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1780-1867
The last important Neoclassical painter was Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, a student of David.
His portraits are now considered his greatest legacy.
He also popularized the female nude as a subject in itself, without mythological or religious references.
Here are some examples of his nudes.
In the early 1800s, Romanticism became the dominant trend in all the arts. Romanticism was about action and emotion, imagination and individual expression; Romanticists abandoned reason and order as guiding aesthetic principles. The foremost French Romantic painters were Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix.
Théodore Géricault, 1791-1824
Théodore Géricault was a pioneer of the Romantic movement.
Eugène Delacroix, 1798-1863
Eugène Delacroix was Géricault's friend and spiritual heir.
He painted many huge, multi-figured scenes with high drama.
Some of his subjects were traditional, but he was a pioneer in painting contemporary scenes.
In 1954 and 1955, Picasso painted a series of 15 variations on Delacroix’s 1834 “The Women of Algiers in Their Apartment,” which depicts Algerian women in a harem. In 2015, the last of this series sold at auction for $179.4 million, making it the most expensive painting ever sold at auction. Here's an internet grab of Picasso's version.
Key points about art in the early 1800s:
Ingres continued the Neo-classical tradition; he is best known for portraits and nudes.
Géricault and Delacroix were the chief examples of the Romantic movement, which favored huge, multi-figured scenes with high drama.
In contrast with all the drama and exoticism of Romanticism, the era also ushered in a new interest in the real world of the painter's experience.
Up to this point, painters were churning out flattering portraits and imagined scenes of history and mythology. It hadn't yet occurred to artists to use painting to record their personal observations and experiences.
In the early 1800s artists first began to look up from their easels and get out of their cave-like studios, and go out and observe the real world.
One effect was the development of landscape painting as a worthy theme in itself, without the excuse of some mythological or historical scene.
Another effect was the depiction of everyday types, instead of grand figures of history or mythology or idealized images of royalty.
Camille Corot, 1796-1875
Camille Corot was an important pioneer of landscape painting in France because, although his paintings were generally finished in the studio, they were based on sketches he made from direct observation.
His example of direct observation from nature, and careful depiction of daylight effects, had a strong influence on the development of Impressionism.
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| Georges de La Tour, 1593-1652 The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds, 1635 |
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| Georges de La Tour, 1593-1652 Magdalene with the Smoking Flame, c. 1640 |
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| Georges de La Tour, 1593-1652 Adoration of Shepherds, 1644 Photo by Dan L. Smith |
Nicolas Poussin, 1594-1650
Most of his works have religious or mythological subjects with a large landscape element.
The Le Nain Brothers, Antoine, Louis, and Mathieu, active in 1630s and 1640s
In the 1630s and 1640s, three brothers of the Le Nain family became important painters and members of the Royal Academy of Art in Paris.
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| Nicolas Poussin, 1594-1650 Saint John Baptising the People, 1636 |
- Above is a placid and harmonious scene of John the Baptist administering the holy sacrament to Jesus. All the possible reactions are depicted: a few women on the right look on curiously, a few men on the left are skeptical, in the foreground a few men are preparing to follow Jesus' example, and a mother is preparing to have her child blessed. But who's the guy on the horse?
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| Nicolas Poussin, 1594-1650 Rape of the Sabines, c. 1638 |
- The painting above shows a wild and violent episode from the legend about the founding of Rome. When the city was first established, there was a lack of women to bear children, so the soldiers planned a mass abduction. They invited the neighboring Sabines to a feast, during which they seized the women and drove the men away.
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| Nicolas Poussin, 1594-1650 Diogenes Throwing Away his Bowl, 1648 Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2015 |
The Le Nain Brothers, Antoine, Louis, and Mathieu, active in 1630s and 1640s
Though they had different styles, they shared a studio, and they all signed their works the same: Le Nain.
To complicate matters, it appears they sometimes collaborated.
In the last few decades there has been a renewal of interest in the Le Nain Brothers, and in 2016 the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco had a large and scholarly exhibition of their works.
Between them, the brothers covered a wide range of subjects, including religious scenes, genre scenes, etc., but the paintings that have secured their claim to history are remarkably sympathetic depictions of the lives of laborers and peasants.
Claude Lorrain, c. 1602-1682
Claude Lorrain is another French painter who depicted classical stories and spent most of his life in Italy.
In the last few decades there has been a renewal of interest in the Le Nain Brothers, and in 2016 the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco had a large and scholarly exhibition of their works.
Between them, the brothers covered a wide range of subjects, including religious scenes, genre scenes, etc., but the paintings that have secured their claim to history are remarkably sympathetic depictions of the lives of laborers and peasants.
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| Le Nain, c. 1600-1648 The Academy, c. 1640 |
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| Le Nain, c. 1600-1648 Smokers in an Interior, c. 1643 |
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| Le Nain, c. 1600-1648 The Denial of St. Peter |
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| Le Nain, c. 1600-1648 Peasant Family |
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| Le Nain, c. 1600-1648 Carts |
Claude Lorrain, c. 1602-1682
His works generally depict a landscape with structures, strong daylight effects, and some sort of mythological story.
He had a great deal of influence on the development of landscape painting.
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| Claude Lorrain, c. 1602-1682 Seaport with Sun Going Down, 1639 Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2015 |
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| Claude Lorrain, c. 1602-1682 Embarkation of Ulysses, 1646 JLS, 2015 |
Philippe de Champaigne, 1602-1674
Philippe de Champaigne was born in Belgium, but he worked in France most of his life and developed a French style of painting.
One of his claims to fame was that he was the only artist who was allowed to paint Richelieu enrobed as a cardinal, which he did eleven times.
Key Points for the 1600s:
The 1600s saw an impressive flowering of painting in France, and several artists rose to fame.
Simon Vouet was the dominant force in French art in the 1600s.
George de La Tour is famous for bringing Caravaggio's dramatic realism to French painting.
Poussin and Lorraine were revered for their neo-classical landscapes, and used to be seen as the major stars of the era.
The Le Nain Brothers worked as a team, and encompassed all the styles of the era, from religious reverence to naturalistic genre scenes.
Philippe de Champaigne was an important court painter in his time. His reputation has lapsed, possibly because he didn't open new directions for art.
In the first half of the 1700s, French painters pulled away from the Italian influence and developed a strictly French style, called Rococo. The Rococo style of painting was marked by asymmetry, pastel colors, and light-hearted subjects such as festivals, theater scenes, mythological narratives, and the female nude. The accent was on the decorative and pleasant aspect of the scenes depicted.
The important painters in this period were Antoine Watteau, Jean-Siméon Chardin, François Boucher, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard.
Antoine Watteau, 1684-1721
Like Raphael and Caravaggio, Watteau was a short-lived artist—he died at age 36—with major impact on the development of art.
His paintings feature figures in aristocratic dress in lush imaginary landscapes. Their amorous and wistful encounters create a mood without telling a clear story.
Jean-Siméon Chardin, 1699-1779
Chardin lived in the era of Rococo, but his style was sober and realistic.
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| Philippe de Champaigne, 1602-1674 Cardinal Richelieu, c. 1639 |
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| Philippe de Champaigne, 1602-1674 The Last Supper, c. 1652 |
Simon Vouet was the dominant force in French art in the 1600s.
George de La Tour is famous for bringing Caravaggio's dramatic realism to French painting.
Poussin and Lorraine were revered for their neo-classical landscapes, and used to be seen as the major stars of the era.
The Le Nain Brothers worked as a team, and encompassed all the styles of the era, from religious reverence to naturalistic genre scenes.
Philippe de Champaigne was an important court painter in his time. His reputation has lapsed, possibly because he didn't open new directions for art.
--------------------------------1700s--------------------------------
Rococo
In the first half of the 1700s, French painters pulled away from the Italian influence and developed a strictly French style, called Rococo. The Rococo style of painting was marked by asymmetry, pastel colors, and light-hearted subjects such as festivals, theater scenes, mythological narratives, and the female nude. The accent was on the decorative and pleasant aspect of the scenes depicted.
The important painters in this period were Antoine Watteau, Jean-Siméon Chardin, François Boucher, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard.
Antoine Watteau, 1684-1721
Like Raphael and Caravaggio, Watteau was a short-lived artist—he died at age 36—with major impact on the development of art.
His paintings feature figures in aristocratic dress in lush imaginary landscapes. Their amorous and wistful encounters create a mood without telling a clear story.
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| Jean-Antoine Watteau, 1684-1721 Pilgrimage to the Isle of Cythera, 1717 |
- In the painting above, Cythera is a mythical island of love; some couples are arriving, some leaving, some cavorting.
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| Jean-Antoine Watteau, 1684-1721 Pierrot, c. 1719 |
- This work by Watteau is enigmatic, not quite fitting any conventions. The figures are all stock characters from a theatrical form known as Commedia dell'Arte, but why is one huge, while the others seem to be standing below the stage? Pierrot has a marvelous satin costume, but he looks depressed, as though he has no idea what he is supposed to be doing. Was this a commission, an exercise, or some sort of personal statement?
Jean-Siméon Chardin, 1699-1779
He specialized in portraits of people involved in ordinary activities.
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| Jean-Siméon Chardin, 1699-1779 The Monkey Antiquarian, c. 1726 (artist age 27) |
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| Jean-Siméon Chardin, 1699-1779 A Chemist in his Laboratory, 1734 |
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| Jean-Siméon Chardin, 1699-1779 Child with a Top, 1738 |
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| Jean-Siméon Chardin, 1699-1779 The Young Draughtsman, c. 1737 |
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| Jean-Siméon Chardin, 1699-1779 Saying Grace, c. 1740 |
François Boucher, 1703-1770
His major subject was classical myths and other romantic stories.
He sometimes treated everyday subjects, such as genre scenes and pastoral landscapes, in a more realistic manner.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 1732-1806
Fragonard painted in the Rococo manner established by Watteau and Boucher, with developments of his own.
He is noted for is productivity and covered a wide range of themes from erotic pastoral scenes to domestic genre scenes.
In 1769, Fragonard painted fourteen "fanciful figures," eight of which are now in the Louvre. He started with the likeness of a real person, but he romanticized the image to express a particular emotion or characteristic. These may be compared to the character types of Rembrandt and other Dutch painters in the 1600s. Fanciful portraits became all the rage.
This next painting depicts a woman who was a musician and composer. The following work shows a dancer.
Watteau shaped the Rococo style with his romantic but enigmatic scenes.
Boucher epitomized the Rococo style with titillating mythological scenes with graceful shapes and exquisite coloration.
Fragonard built on the work of Watteau and Boucher to produce a large body of paintings on a wide variety of themes.
Chardin lived during the Rococo era of the mid-1700s, but his style was sober and his subjects were typical characters engaged in ordinary activities.
As a natural reaction to the frivolousness of Rococo painting, artists started looking once again toward Rome, both for subjects and styles. This led to an art movement known as Neo-Classicism.
Hubert Robert, 1733-1808
Hubert Robert specialized in scenes of architectural ruins, especially the ruins of Rome. Paintings of ruins were very trendy at the time, and his were very popular.
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| François Boucher, 1703-1770 Family Taking Breakfast, 1739 |
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| François Boucher, 1703-1770 The Forest, 1740 |
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| François Boucher, 1703-1770 The Rape of Europa, 1747 |
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| François Boucher, 1703-1770 The Water Mill, 1751 |
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| François Boucher, 1703-1770 Vulcan’s Forge, 1757 |
- In Virgil’s epic Aeneid, Venus seduces Vulcan and persuades him to forge weapons for her son Aeneas. In the painting above, Vulcan offers Venus a sword; other armament surrounds him, as well as his forging equipment.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 1732-1806
Fragonard painted in the Rococo manner established by Watteau and Boucher, with developments of his own.
He is noted for is productivity and covered a wide range of themes from erotic pastoral scenes to domestic genre scenes.
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| Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 1732-1806 The Falls of Tivoli, c. 1762 |
In 1769, Fragonard painted fourteen "fanciful figures," eight of which are now in the Louvre. He started with the likeness of a real person, but he romanticized the image to express a particular emotion or characteristic. These may be compared to the character types of Rembrandt and other Dutch painters in the 1600s. Fanciful portraits became all the rage.
This next painting depicts a woman who was a musician and composer. The following work shows a dancer.
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| Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 1732-1806 Fantasy Figure: Anne-Louise Brillon de Jouy, c. 1769 |
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| Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 1732-1806 Fantasy figure. Marie-Madeleine Guimard, Dancer, 1769 |
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| Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 1732-1806 Fantasy Figure; portrait of the Abbé de Saint-Non (1727-1791), 1769 Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2015 |
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| Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 1732-1806 Fantasy Figure - Music; Portrait of Monsieur de La Breteche (1722-1804), 1769 Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2015 |
Key Points for Rococo Period:
Watteau shaped the Rococo style with his romantic but enigmatic scenes.
Boucher epitomized the Rococo style with titillating mythological scenes with graceful shapes and exquisite coloration.
Fragonard built on the work of Watteau and Boucher to produce a large body of paintings on a wide variety of themes.
Chardin lived during the Rococo era of the mid-1700s, but his style was sober and his subjects were typical characters engaged in ordinary activities.
Neo-classicism
As a natural reaction to the frivolousness of Rococo painting, artists started looking once again toward Rome, both for subjects and styles. This led to an art movement known as Neo-Classicism.
Hubert Robert, 1733-1808
He studied in Rome; one of his teachers there was Panini, who specialized in architecture.
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| Hubert Robert, 1733-1808 The Pont du Gard, 1787 |
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| Hubert Robert, 1733-1808 Interior of the Temple of Diana at Nimes, 1787 |
Robert could paint contemporary architecture as well, and in 1796 he created a pair of works that display that ability along with a dystopian sense of humor. The first painting is a view of the Grand Gallery of the Louvre Museum, which was already legendary among artists as a place to study the masters.
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| Hubert Robert, 1733-1808 View of the Grand Gallery of the Louvre, 1796 |
The next painting is an imaginary view of this same gallery in ruins, a very modern train of thought.
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| Hubert Robert, 1733-1808 Imaginary View of the Grande Galerie du Louvre in Ruins, 1796 |
Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825
He revived interest in grand paintings showing historical or mythological scenes.
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| Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825 The Oath of the Horatii, c. 1784 |
- This example could be called the ultimate Neoclassical painting. It illustrates a Roman legend about a conflict between the Romans and a rival group from a nearby town. Rather than continue a full-scale war, they elect representative combatants to settle their dispute. The Romans select the sons of Horatius. Their father is holding up their swords and they are swearing to "Conquer or Die." Contrasting with this show of loyalty and courage is the sorrow of the women in their family. To make the story more poignant, one of the sisters is betrothed to one of the three brothers representing their enemy, so she stands to lose no matter what the outcome. The moralistic tone and the noble presentation made this painting a great hit at the time, and it was highly influential on the future of painting.
David was also a formidable portraitist.
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| Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825 The Marquise d’Orvilliers, 1790 |
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| Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825 Portrait of Madame Marie-Louise Trudaine, 1792 |
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| Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825 The Death of Marat, 1794 |
- The character in the painting above was a French revolutionary leader and radical journalist named Jean-Paul Marat who was murdered in his bath. He suffered from a skin condition that caused him to spend much of his time in the tub, and even to work there. He is holding a letter of introduction for Charlotte Corday, who claimed to have information about his enemies in order to gain an interview. After she was admitted, Corday fatally stabbed Marat, making him a martyr to the cause of Revolution.
- This painting is a copy made by the artist. The original is in The Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels.
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| Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825 Self-Portrait, 1794 |
- David painted this self-portrait while he was imprisoned, but he showed himself younger and more robust than he was at the time.
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| Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825 The Intervention of the Sabines, 1799 |
- For his support of the Revolution, David was imprisoned twice for short periods in Luxembourg Palace, where he was allowed to paint. During his confinement, he decided to paint a 'sequel' to Poussin's Rape of the Sabine Women, which was discussed above. David's version depicts a later battle in which the wife of Rome's founder rushes between him and her father, the leader of the Sabines, and even places her babies between them. It is interpreted as a call for peace after the Revolution. It took him four years to complete this canvas, and it was a big success with the public.
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| Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825 Madame Raymond de Verninac, 1799 |
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| Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825 Madame Récamier, 1800 |
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| Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825 Coronation of Napoleon I, 1806-1807 20 ft high x 32 ft wide Internet |
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| Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825 Coronation of Napoleon I, 1806-1807 20 ft high x 32 ft wide Detail by Dan L. Smith, 2015 |
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| Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825 Portrait of Antoine Mongez and his Wife, Angélique, 1812 |
The Rise of Women Artists
One marvelous aspect of the late 1700s is that several women artists created successful careers. Although they were popular in their time, after their deaths, their work was long neglected or attributed to male artists, typically their teachers. In recent decades, new research has re-discovered these women and gradually corrected the attribution of their paintings. The Louvre was showing work by three of them: Anne Vallayer-Coster, Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard.
Anne Vallayer-Coster, 1744-1818
Anne Vallayer-Coster was admitted to the Royal Academy in 1770, at the age of 26, a real ground-breaker. She was best known for her paintings of flowers.
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| Anne Vallayer-Coster, 1744-1818 Attributes of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, 1769 |
Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, 1755-1842
Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun was a big star of portrait painting in her own time, and continues to be very popular. She was very prolific, and her work may be seen in many museums.
All of her work was portraiture for royal or aristocratic patrons, and she generally idealized and romanticized their image. She excelled at concocting colorful costumes, and her ability to convey the texture of fabric was uncanny.
Her sweet palette and light touch relate her work to the Rococo style, but her figures have the solidity, the clear light, and the traditional poses of Neoclassical portraiture.
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| Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, 1755-1842 Portrait of Madame Molé-Reymond, 1786 |
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| Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, 1755-1842 Portrait of Madame Rousseau and her son, 1789 |
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, 1749-1803
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard was admitted to the Royal Academy in 1783, on the same day as Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, and she also specialized in portraits.
For a long time she was considered less talented than Vigée-Lebrun, but she was more versatile and truer to reality, so esteem for her work is growing. Her skill is very convincingly demonstrated in this portrait of her teacher.
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| Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, 1749-1803 François-André Vincent, c. 1795 |
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| François-André Vincent, 1746-1816 Zeuxis Choosing his Models for the Image of Helen, 1789 |
- Here's an example of work by her teacher, who later became her husband. It depicts a "beauty contest" in which an artist is choosing a model to represent Helen of Troy.
Key Points of the Neo-classical era:
Hubert Robert was popular for his depictions of Roman ruins.
Jacques-Louis David was the greatest artist of the Neo-Classical period.
There was a flowering of women artists during the late 1700s.
The most popular and productive woman artist of the period was Élisabeth Vigée LeBrun, who painted portraits of royalty.
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard was a very talented portrait artist who managed to survive the era of royalty into the Republican era.
--------------------------------1800s--------------------------------
Neoclassicism continues
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1780-1867
The last important Neoclassical painter was Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, a student of David.
His portraits are now considered his greatest legacy.
He also popularized the female nude as a subject in itself, without mythological or religious references.
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| Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1780-1867 Madame Rivière, 1806 |
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| Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1780-1867 Philibert Rivière, c. 1805 |
Here are some examples of his nudes.
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| Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1780-1867 The Bather, 1808 |
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| Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1780-1867 The Grand Odalisque, 1814 Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2015 |
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| Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1780-1867 The Turkish Bath, 1862 |
- When he was eighty-two years old, Ingres painted this peak expression of voluptuousness. The figure in the previous painting reappears in the foreground of the painting, even wearing the same headscarf, but seated on the floor playing an instrument. She gazes upon an extraordinary scene.
- What sort of situation would bring a lot of naked women together in such tight quarters? It would have to be a harem or a brothel. Why do they look so languid? Could that be opium paraphernalia in the foreground?
- The nature of the scene is tawdry, but that is almost irrelevant. What mattered to Ingres was to make a perfect design showing the female nude in every conceivable pose; what mattered was to show depth of field through a progression of smaller figures and darker shading; what mattered was that sweeping curve from the back of the instrumentalist around through the frontal nudes to the back. The mood of waiting, of unconscious drifting, is captivating.
Romanticism
In the early 1800s, Romanticism became the dominant trend in all the arts. Romanticism was about action and emotion, imagination and individual expression; Romanticists abandoned reason and order as guiding aesthetic principles. The foremost French Romantic painters were Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix.
Théodore Géricault, 1791-1824
Théodore Géricault was a pioneer of the Romantic movement.
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| Théodore Géricault, 1791-1824 The Charging Chasseur, c. 1812 |
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| Théodore Géricault, 1791-1824 The Raft of the Medusa, 1819 |
- Géricault is most famous for this painting of a contemporary French shipwreck in which the captain left the crew and passengers to die. The incident became a national scandal, and Géricault's dramatic interpretation presented a contemporary tragedy. It is a huge, dark canvas in dreadful need of restoration.
Eugène Delacroix, 1798-1863
Eugène Delacroix was Géricault's friend and spiritual heir.
He painted many huge, multi-figured scenes with high drama.
Some of his subjects were traditional, but he was a pioneer in painting contemporary scenes.
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| Eugène Delacroix, 1798-1863 Liberty Leading the People, 1831 11 ft wide Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2015 |
- The painting above was Delacroix's most influential. Parisians, having taken up arms, are marching forward under the banner of the tricolour representing liberty, equality, and fraternity. This is a very large canvas, and it needs restoration. Commemorates the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X.
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| Eugène Delacroix, 1798-1863 The Barque of Dante, 1822 8 ft wide Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2015 |
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| Eugène Delacroix, 1798-1863 The Death of Sardanapalus, 1827 16 feet wide Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2015 |
- The painting above was inspired by a tragedy by Byron, which, besieged by his enemies, Sardanapalus commits suicide. Delacroix imagined that he also burned everything that had given him worldly pleasure.
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| Eugène Delacroix, 1798-1863 Women of Algiers, 1834 |
In 1954 and 1955, Picasso painted a series of 15 variations on Delacroix’s 1834 “The Women of Algiers in Their Apartment,” which depicts Algerian women in a harem. In 2015, the last of this series sold at auction for $179.4 million, making it the most expensive painting ever sold at auction. Here's an internet grab of Picasso's version.
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| Pablo Picasso, 1881-1973 Women of Algiers, 1934 Internet grab |
Key points about art in the early 1800s:
Ingres continued the Neo-classical tradition; he is best known for portraits and nudes.
Géricault and Delacroix were the chief examples of the Romantic movement, which favored huge, multi-figured scenes with high drama.
Realism
In contrast with all the drama and exoticism of Romanticism, the era also ushered in a new interest in the real world of the painter's experience.
Up to this point, painters were churning out flattering portraits and imagined scenes of history and mythology. It hadn't yet occurred to artists to use painting to record their personal observations and experiences.
In the early 1800s artists first began to look up from their easels and get out of their cave-like studios, and go out and observe the real world.
One effect was the development of landscape painting as a worthy theme in itself, without the excuse of some mythological or historical scene.
Another effect was the depiction of everyday types, instead of grand figures of history or mythology or idealized images of royalty.
Camille Corot, 1796-1875
Camille Corot was an important pioneer of landscape painting in France because, although his paintings were generally finished in the studio, they were based on sketches he made from direct observation.
His example of direct observation from nature, and careful depiction of daylight effects, had a strong influence on the development of Impressionism.
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| Camille Corot, 1796-1875 Chartres Cathedral, 1830 |
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| Camille Corot, 1796-1875 The Church at Marissel, 1866 |
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| Camille Corot, 1796-1875 Velléda, c. 1870 |
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| Camille Corot, 1796-1875 Lady in Blue, 1874 Photo by Dan L. Smith |
Key Points in the Early History of French Art
The first great flowering of French art was the 1600s, the Baroque period, when several talented artists emerged.
In the 1700s, the French dominated the art world, first with the Rococo movement, then with Neo-classicism. Rococo was all about light-hearted frivolity. Neo-classicism was all about high seriousness.
The 1700s was a time when women artists flourished in France.
In the 1800s Neo-classicism continued, but there was also a major Romantic movement.
The transition to a more modern attitude toward art started in the early 1800s with Realism, which relied on direct observation of the real world instead of imaginative studio setups.
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