The Louvre: Fifty Plates in Colour

Name: The Louvre: Fifty Plates in Colour
Author: Brockwell, Maurice W.

Brockwell, Maurice W.

Musée du Louvre

When Napoleon rose to power, David became his favourite painter. The
erstwhile Jacobin was chosen to paint the official _Coronation_ picture
(No. 202A), an enormous canvas, which, like most ceremonial pictures of
this kind, has more historical than artistic significance. The lifelike
portraiture of the numerous personages surrounding the central group of
Napoleon placing the crown on Josephine’s head, is the chief point of
interest. On the restoration of the Bourbons in 1815, David was sent
into exile. He died at Brussels in 1825; but his influence is reflected
in official French art to this day. It was he who imposed upon the
modern academic school a rigid canon of formal classic beauty which is
fatal to evolution and progress, because it does not permit personal
emotional expression.

Less severely classic in form, and showing at least an attempt at
approaching a little nearer to truth than David, is the painting of
the figures of _The Three Graces_ (No. 769), by David’s rival, J.
B. Regnault (1754-1829), in the La Caze collection. The worst type
of academic art is represented in the bituminous reconstructions of
classic antiquity by his pupil, P. N. Guérin (1774-1833), whose _Return
of Marcus Sextus_ (No. 393) enjoyed, perhaps owing to its supposed
political allusion to the return of the emigrants, a success which
cannot be accounted for on artistic grounds.

  [Illustration:
                    PLATE XLV.—JACQUES LOUIS DAVID

                              (1748-1825)

                  No. 199.—PORTRAIT OF MME. RÉCAMIER

                      (Portrait de Mme. Récamier)

  The sitter wears a white Empire dress, the train of which
  hangs down to the ground from the Empire sofa on which she is
  half reclining, with her left elbow resting on a pair of round
  horse-hair bolsters. Her face is turned towards her right shoulder.
  A wide black riband is tied round her fair curled hair. A low
  footstool in front of the sofa on the right, and a standing
  candelabrum of classic design on the left.

  The candelabrum is said to have been painted by Ingres.

  Painted in oil on canvas (unfinished).

  5 ft. 7 in. × 7 ft. 10½ in. (1·70 × 2·40.)]


                             BARON GÉRARD

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

The Louvre: Fifty Plates in ColourBrockwell, Maurice W.

History

The Louvre: Fifty Plates in Colour

Brockwell, Maurice W.

Musée du Louvre

When Napoleon rose to power, David became his favourite painter. The
erstwhile Jacobin was chosen to paint the official _Coronation_ picture
(No. 202A), an enormous canvas, which, like most ceremonial pictures of
this kind, has more historical than artistic significance. The lifelike
portraiture of the numerous personages surrounding the central group of
Napoleon placing the crown on Josephine’s head, is the chief point of
interest. On the restoration of the Bourbons in 1815, David was sent
into exile. He died at Brussels in 1825; but his influence is reflected
in official French art to this day. It was he who imposed upon the
modern academic school a rigid canon of formal classic beauty which is
fatal to evolution and progress, because it does not permit personal
emotional expression.

Less severely classic in form, and showing at least an attempt at
approaching a little nearer to truth than David, is the painting of
the figures of _The Three Graces_ (No. 769), by David’s rival, J.
B. Regnault (1754-1829), in the La Caze collection. The worst type
of academic art is represented in the bituminous reconstructions of
classic antiquity by his pupil, P. N. Guérin (1774-1833), whose _Return
of Marcus Sextus_ (No. 393) enjoyed, perhaps owing to its supposed
political allusion to the return of the emigrants, a success which
cannot be accounted for on artistic grounds.

  [Illustration:
                    PLATE XLV.—JACQUES LOUIS DAVID

                              (1748-1825)

                  No. 199.—PORTRAIT OF MME. RÉCAMIER

                      (Portrait de Mme. Récamier)

  The sitter wears a white Empire dress, the train of which
  hangs down to the ground from the Empire sofa on which she is
  half reclining, with her left elbow resting on a pair of round
  horse-hair bolsters. Her face is turned towards her right shoulder.
  A wide black riband is tied round her fair curled hair. A low
  footstool in front of the sofa on the right, and a standing
  candelabrum of classic design on the left.

  The candelabrum is said to have been painted by Ingres.

  Painted in oil on canvas (unfinished).

  5 ft. 7 in. × 7 ft. 10½ in. (1·70 × 2·40.)]


                             BARON GÉRARD

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

The Louvre: Fifty Plates in Colour

The Louvre: Fifty Plates in Colour

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