Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( , ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French
Neoclassical painter
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...
. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic orthodoxy against the ascendant
Romantic style. Although he considered himself a
painter of history in the tradition of
Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for a ...
and
Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in ...
, it is his
portrait
A portrait is a portrait painting, painting, portrait photography, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, Personality type ...
s, both painted and drawn, that are recognized as his greatest legacy. His expressive distortions of form and space made him an important precursor of
modern art
Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradi ...
, influencing
Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
,
Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...
and other modernists.
Born into a modest family in
Montauban
Montauban (, ; oc, Montalban ) is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department, region of Occitania, Southern France. It is the capital of the department and lies north of Toulouse. Montauban is the most populated town in Tarn-et-Garonne, an ...
, he travelled to Paris to study in the studio of
David
David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
. In 1802 he made his
Salon
Salon may refer to:
Common meanings
* Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments
* French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home
* Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment
Arts and entertainment
* Salon (P ...
debut, and won the
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...
for his painting ''
The Ambassadors of Agamemnon in the tent of Achilles
''The Ambassadors of Agamemnon in the tent of Achilles'' is an oil-on-canvas painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, produced in 1801 for the Prix de Rome competition. It is now in the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris.
It ...
''. By the time he departed in 1806 for his residency in Rome, his style—revealing his close study of Italian and Flemish Renaissance masters—was fully developed, and would change little for the rest of his life. While working in Rome and subsequently Florence from 1806 to 1824, he regularly sent paintings to the Paris Salon, where they were faulted by critics who found his style bizarre and archaic. He received few commissions during this period for the history paintings he aspired to paint, but was able to support himself and his wife as a portrait painter and draughtsman.
He was finally recognized at the Salon in 1824, when his
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of works by Raphael, His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of ...
esque painting, ''
The Vow of Louis XIII
''The Vow of Louis XIII'' is an 1824 painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, now in Montauban Cathedral. The oil painting shows a vow to the Virgin Mary by Louis XIII of France.
It was commissioned by France's Ministry of Interior in August ...
'', was met with acclaim, and Ingres was acknowledged as the leader of the Neoclassical school in France. Although the income from commissions for history paintings allowed him to paint fewer portraits, his ''
Portrait of Monsieur Bertin
''Portrait of Monsieur Bertin'' is an 1832 oil on canvas painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. It depicts Louis-François Bertin (1766–1841), the French writer, art collector and director of the pro-royalist ''Journal des débats''. Ingr ...
'' marked his next popular success in 1833. The following year, his indignation at the harsh criticism of his ambitious composition ''
The Martyrdom of Saint Symphorian
''The Martyrdom of Saint Symphorian'' is an 1834 painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. It shows the death of Symphorian and Timotheus, Saint Symphorian, the first Christian martyr in Gaul. Painted in oil on canvas and measuring 407 x 339 cm, ...
'' caused him to return to Italy, where he assumed directorship of the
French Academy in Rome
The French Academy in Rome (french: Académie de France à Rome) is an Academy located in the Villa Medici, within the Villa Borghese, on the Pincio (Pincian Hill) in Rome, Italy.
History
The Academy was founded at the Palazzo Capranica in 1 ...
in 1835. He returned to Paris for good in 1841. In his later years he painted new versions of many of his earlier compositions, a series of designs for stained glass windows, several important portraits of women, and ''
The Turkish Bath
''The Turkish Bath'' (') is an oil painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, initially completed between 1852 and 1859, but modified in 1862. The painting depicts a group of nude women at a pool in a harem. It has an erotic style that evokes ...
'', the last of his several
Orientalist paintings of the female nude, which he finished at the age of 83.
Early years: Montauban and Toulouse
Ingres was born in
Montauban
Montauban (, ; oc, Montalban ) is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department, region of Occitania, Southern France. It is the capital of the department and lies north of Toulouse. Montauban is the most populated town in Tarn-et-Garonne, an ...
,
Tarn-et-Garonne
Tarn-et-Garonne (; oc, Tarn e Garona ) is a department in the Occitania region in Southern France. It is traversed by the rivers Tarn and Garonne, from which it takes its name. The area was originally part of the former provinces of Quercy and ...
, France, the first of seven children (five of whom survived infancy) of Jean-Marie-Joseph Ingres (1755–1814) and his wife Anne Moulet (1758–1817). His father was a successful jack-of-all-trades in the arts, a painter of
miniatures, sculptor, decorative stonemason, and amateur musician; his mother was the nearly illiterate daughter of a master wigmaker. From his father the young Ingres received early encouragement and instruction in drawing and music, and his first known drawing, a study after an antique cast, was made in 1789.
[Arikha 1986, p. 103.] Starting in 1786, he attended the local school École des Frères de l'Éducation Chrétienne, but his education was disrupted by the turmoil of the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
, and the closing of the school in 1791 marked the end of his conventional education. The deficiency in his schooling would always remain for him a source of insecurity.
In 1791, Joseph Ingres took his son to
Toulouse
Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...
, where the young Jean-Auguste-Dominique was enrolled in the Académie Royale de Peinture, Sculpture et Architecture. There he studied under the sculptor Jean-Pierre Vigan, the landscape painter Jean Briant, and the neoclassical painter
Guillaume-Joseph Roques
Guillaume-Joseph Roques (1757–1847) was a French neoclassical and romantic painter.
He taught at the Royal Academy of Arts in Toulouse where Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres was among his pupils. He was a prolific artist and one of the mos ...
. Roques' veneration of
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of works by Raphael, His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of ...
was a decisive influence on the young artist. Ingres won prizes in several disciplines, such as composition, "figure and antique", and life studies.
His musical talent was developed under the tutelage of the violinist Lejeune, and from the ages of thirteen to sixteen he played second violin in the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse.
From an early age he was determined to be a history painter, which, in the hierarchy of genres established by the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture under Louis XIV, and continued well into the 19th Century, was considered the highest level of painting. He did not want to simply make portraits or illustrations of real life like his father; he wanted to represent the heroes of religion, history and mythology, to idealize them and show them in ways that explained their actions, rivaling the best works of literature and philosophy.
In Paris (1797–1806)
![Ingres - estudo de nu - 1801](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Ingres_-_estudo_de_nu_-_1801.jpg)
In March 1797, the Academy awarded Ingres first prize in drawing, and in August he traveled to
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
to study in the studio of
Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in ...
, France's—and Europe's—leading painter during the revolutionary period, in whose studio he remained for four years. Ingres followed his master's neoclassical example. In 1797 David was working on his enormous masterpiece, ''
The Intervention of the Sabine Women
''The Intervention of the Sabine Women'' is a 1799 painting by the French painter Jacques-Louis David, showing a legendary episode following the abduction of the Sabine women by the founding generation of Rome.
David began planning the work wh ...
'', and was gradually modifying his style away from Roman models of rigorous realism to the ideals of purity, virtue and simplicity in Greek art. One of the other students of David,
Étienne-Jean Delécluze
Etienne-Jean Delécluze () (26 February 1781 – 12 July 1863) was a French painter and critic.
From 1797 on, he was a pupil of Jacques-Louis David, as he describes in his biography of David.
As one of his favorite pupils, he was invited t ...
, who later became an art critic, described Ingres as a student:
He was distinguished not just by the candor of his character and his disposition to work alone ... he was one of the most studious ... he took little part in the all the turbulent follies around him, and he studied with more perseverance than most of his co-disciples ... All of the qualities which characterize today the talent of this artist, the finesse of contour, the true and profound sentiment of the form, and a modeling with extraordinary correctness and firmness, could already be seen in his early studies. While several of his comrades and David himself signaled a tendency toward exaggeration in his studies, everyone was struck by his grand compositions and recognized his talent.
He was admitted to the painting department of the
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth century ...
in October 1799. In 1800 and 1801, he won the grand prize for figure painting for his paintings of male torsos. In 1800 and 1801 he also competed for the Prix de Rome, the highest prize of the Academy, which entitled the winner to four years of residence at the French Academy in Rome. He came in second in his first attempt, but in 1801 he took the top prize with ''
The Ambassadors of Agamemnon in the tent of Achilles
''The Ambassadors of Agamemnon in the tent of Achilles'' is an oil-on-canvas painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, produced in 1801 for the Prix de Rome competition. It is now in the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris.
It ...
''. The figures of the envoys, in the right of the painting, are muscular and solid as statues, in the style taught by David, but the two main figures on the left, Achilles and Patroclus, are mobile, vivid and graceful, like figures in a delicate bas-relief.
![The Envoys of Agamemnon by Ingres](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/The_Envoys_of_Agamemnon_by_Ingres.jpg)
His residence in Rome was postponed until 1806 due to shortage of state funds. In the meantime he worked in Paris alongside several other students of David in a studio provided by the state, and further developed a style that emphasized purity of contour. He found inspiration in the works of Raphael, in
Etruscan __NOTOC__
Etruscan may refer to:
Ancient civilization
*The Etruscan language, an extinct language in ancient Italy
*Something derived from or related to the Etruscan civilization
**Etruscan architecture
**Etruscan art
**Etruscan cities
**Etruscan ...
vase paintings, and in the outline engravings of the English artist
John Flaxman
John Flaxman (6 July 1755 – 7 December 1826) was a British sculptor and draughtsman, and a leading figure in British and European Neoclassicism. Early in his career, he worked as a modeller for Josiah Wedgwood's pottery. He spent several yea ...
.
[Mongan and Naef 1967, p. xix.] His drawings of
Hermaphrodite
In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has both kinds of reproductive organs and can produce both gametes associated with male and female sexes.
Many Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic groups of animals (mostly invertebrate ...
and the Nymph
Salmacis
Salmacis ( grc, Σαλμακίς) was an atypical Naiad nymph of Greek mythology. She rejected the ways of the virginal Culture of Greece, Greek goddess Artemis in favour of vanity and idleness.
Mythology Ovid's version
Salmacis' attempted ...
showed a new stylized ideal of female beauty, which would reappear later in his ''Jupiter et Thetis'' and his famous nudes.
In 1802 he made his debut at the
Salon
Salon may refer to:
Common meanings
* Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments
* French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home
* Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment
Arts and entertainment
* Salon (P ...
with ''Portrait of a Woman'' (the current whereabouts of which is unknown). Between 1804 and 1806 he painted a series of portraits which were striking for their extreme precision, particularly in the richness of their fabrics and tiny details. These included the ''Portrait of Philipbert Riviére'' (1805), ''Portrait of Sabine Rivière'' (1805–06), ''Portrait of Madame Aymon'' (also known as ''La Belle Zélie''; 1806), and ''Portrait of Caroline Rivière'' (1805–06). The female faces were not at all detailed but were softened, and were notable for their large oval eyes and delicate flesh colours and their rather dreamlike expressions. His portraits typically had simple backgrounds of solid dark or light colour, or of sky. These were the beginning of a series that would make him among the most celebrated portrait artists of the 19th century.
As Ingres waited to depart to Rome, his friend
Lorenzo Bartolini
Lorenzo Bartolini (Prato, 7 January 1777 Florence, 20 January 1850) was an Italian sculptor who infused his neoclassicism with a strain of sentimental piety and naturalistic detail, while he drew inspiration from the sculpture of the Florentine ...
introduced him to Italian Renaissance paintings, particularly the works of
Bronzino
Agnolo di Cosimo (; 17 November 150323 November 1572), usually known as Bronzino ( it, Il Bronzino ) or Agnolo Bronzino, was an Italian Mannerist painter from Florence. His sobriquet, ''Bronzino'', may refer to his relatively dark skin or reddis ...
and
Pontormo
Jacopo Carucci (May 24, 1494 – January 2, 1557), usually known as ''Jacopo da Pontormo'', ''Jacopo Pontormo'', or simply Pontormo, was an Italian Mannerism, Mannerist painter and portraitist from the Florentine School. His work represents a pr ...
, which Napoleon had brought back from his campaign in Italy and placed in the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
. Ingres assimilated their clarity and monumentality into his own portrait style. In the Louvre were also masterpieces of Flemish art, including the ''
Ghent Altarpiece
The ''Adoration of the Mystic Lamb'', also called the ''Ghent Altarpiece'' ( nl, De aanbidding van het Lam Gods), is a large and complex 15th-century polyptych altarpiece in St Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium. It was begun around the mid-1420 ...
'' by
Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck ( , ; – July 9, 1441) was a painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Northern Renaissance art. Ac ...
, which the French army had seized during its conquest of Flanders. The precision of Renaissance Flemish art became part of Ingres's style. Ingres's stylistic eclecticism represented a new tendency in art. The Louvre, newly filled with booty seized by Napoleon in his campaigns in Italy and the
Low Countries
The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
, provided French artists of the early 19th century with an unprecedented opportunity to study, compare, and copy masterworks from antiquity and from the entire history of European painting. As art historian Marjorie Cohn has written: "At the time, art history as a scholarly enquiry was brand-new. Artists and critics outdid each other in their attempts to identify, interpret, and exploit what they were just beginning to perceive as historical stylistic developments."
[Condon et al. 1983, p. 13.] From the beginning of his career, Ingres freely borrowed from earlier art, adopting the historical style appropriate to his subject, and was consequently accused by critics of plundering the past.
![Ingres, Napoleon on his Imperial throne](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Ingres%2C_Napoleon_on_his_Imperial_throne.jpg)
In 1803 he received a prestigious commission, being one of five artists selected (along with
Jean-Baptiste Greuze
Jean-Baptiste Greuze (, 21 August 1725 – 4 March 1805) was a French painter of portraits, genre scenes, and history painting.
Biography Early life
Greuze was born at Tournus, a market town in Burgundy. He is generally said to have formed h ...
,
Robert Lefèvre
Robert Jacques François Faust Lefèvre (, 24 September 1755, in Bayeux – 3 October 1830, in Paris) was a French painter of portraits, history paintings and religious paintings. He was heavily influenced by Jacques-Louis David and his style i ...
, Charles Meynier, and
Marie-Guillemine Benoist
Marie-Guillemine Benoist, born Marie-Guillemine de Laville-Leroux (December 18, 1768 – October 8, 1826), was a French neoclassical, historical, and genre painter.
Biography
Benoist was born in Paris, the daughter of a civil servant. Her tr ...
) to paint full-length portraits of
Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
as
First Consul
The Consulate (french: Le Consulat) was the top-level Government of France from the fall of the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire on 10 November 1799 until the start of the Napoleonic Empire on 18 May 1804. By extension, the term ''The Con ...
. These were to be distributed to the prefectural towns of
Liège
Liège ( , , ; wa, Lîdje ; nl, Luik ; german: Lüttich ) is a major city and municipality of Wallonia and the capital of the Belgian province of Liège.
The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east of Belgium, not far from b ...
,
Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, ,
Dunkerque
Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque ; vls, label=French Flemish, Duunkerke; nl, Duinkerke(n) ; , ;) is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France.[Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...]
, and
Ghent
Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in ...
, all of which were newly ceded to France in the 1801
Treaty of Lunéville
The Treaty of Lunéville (or Peace of Lunéville) was signed in the Treaty House of Lunéville on 9 February 1801. The signatory parties were the French Republic and Emperor Francis II, who signed on his own behalf as ruler of the hereditary doma ...
. Napoleon is not known to have granted the artists a sitting, and Ingres's meticulously painted portrait of ''
Bonaparte, First Consul
''Bonaparte, First Consul'' (''Bonaparte, Premier Consul'') is an 1804 portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. The painting is now in the collection of the Curtius Museum in Liège. Posing the hand insi ...
'' appears to be modelled on an image of Napoleon painted by
Antoine-Jean Gros
Antoine-Jean Gros (; 16 March 177125 June 1835) was a French painter of historical subjects. He was given title of Baron Gros in 1824.
Gros studied under Jacques-Louis David in Paris and began an independent artistic career during the French R ...
in 1802.
![Medallion portrait of Julie Forestier 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Medallion_portrait_of_Julie_Forestier_1.jpg)
In the summer of 1806, Ingres became engaged to
Marie-Anne-Julie Forestier, a painter and musician, before leaving for
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
in September. Although he had hoped to stay in Paris long enough to witness the opening of that year's Salon, in which he was to display several works, he reluctantly left for Italy just days before the opening.
Ingres painted a new portrait of Napoleon for presentation at the 1806 Salon, this one showing Napoleon on the Imperial Throne for his coronation. This painting was entirely different from his earlier portrait of Napoleon as First Consul; it concentrated almost entirely on the lavish imperial costume that Napoleon had chosen to wear, and the symbols of power he held. The scepter of
Charles V Charles V may refer to:
* Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558)
* Charles V of Naples (1661–1700), better known as Charles II of Spain
* Charles V of France (1338–1380), called the Wise
* Charles V, Duke of Lorraine (1643–1690)
* Infan ...
, the sword of
Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy ...
the rich fabrics, furs and capes, crown of gold leaves, golden chains and emblems were all presented in extremely precise detail; the Emperor's face and hands were almost lost in the majestic costume.
At the Salon, his paintings—''Self-Portrait'', portraits of the Rivière family, and ''
Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne''—received a very chilly reception. David delivered a severe judgement,
and the critics were hostile.
Chaussard (''Le Pausanias Français'', 1806) praised "the fineness of Ingres's brushwork and the finish", but condemned Ingres's style as gothic and asked:
How, with so much talent, a line so flawless, an attention to detail so thorough, has M. Ingres succeeded in painting a bad picture? The answer is that he wanted to do something singular, something extraordinary ... M. Ingres's intention is nothing less than to make art regress by four centuries, to carry us back to its infancy, to revive the manner of Jean de Bruges.
Rome and the French Academy (1806–1814)
![Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres - La Baigneuse Valpinçon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Jean-Auguste-Dominique_Ingres_-_La_Baigneuse_Valpin%C3%A7on.jpg)
Newly arrived in Rome, Ingres read with mounting indignation the relentlessly negative press clippings sent to him from Paris by his friends. In letters to his prospective father-in-law, he expressed his outrage at the critics: "So the Salon is the scene of my disgrace; ... The scoundrels, they waited until I was away to assassinate my reputation ... I have never been so unhappy....I knew I had many enemies; I never was agreeable with them and never will be. My greatest wish would be to fly to the Salon and to confound them with my works, which don't in any way resemble theirs; and the more I advance, the less their work will resemble mine." He vowed never again to exhibit at the Salon, and his refusal to return to Paris led to the breaking up of his engagement. Julie Forestier, when asked years later why she had never married, responded, "When one has had the honor of being engaged to M. Ingres, one does not marry."
On 23 November 1806, he wrote to Jean Forestier, the father of his former fiancée, "Yes, art will need to be reformed, and I intend to be that revolutionary." Characteristically, he found a studio on the grounds of the
Villa Medici
The Villa Medici () is a Mannerist villa and an architectural complex with a garden contiguous with the larger Borghese gardens, on the Pincian Hill next to Trinità dei Monti in Rome, Italy. The Villa Medici, founded by Ferdinando I de' Medici, ...
away from the other resident artists, and painted furiously. Many drawings of monuments in Rome from this time are attributed to Ingres, but it appears from more recent scholarship that they were actually the work of his collaborators, particularly his friend the landscape artist
François-Marius Granet. As required of every winner of the ''Prix'', he sent works at regular intervals to Paris so his progress could be judged. Traditionally fellows sent paintings of male Greek or Roman heroes, but for his first samples Ingres sent ''Baigneuse à mi-corps'' (1807), a painting of the back of a young woman bathing, based on an engraving of an antique vase, and ''
La Grande Bagneuse'' (1808), a larger painting of the back of a nude bather, and the first Ingres model to wear a turban, a detail he borrowed from the Fornarina by his favourite painter,
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of works by Raphael, His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of ...
. To satisfy the Academy in Paris, he also dispatched ''
Oedipus and the Sphinx
''Oedipus and the Sphinx'' is an 1864 oil on canvas painting by Gustave Moreau that was first exhibited at the French Salon of 1864 where it was an immediate success. It is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The work was a fresh treatment ...
'' to show his mastery of the male nude. The verdict of the academicians in Paris was that the figures were not sufficiently idealized. In later years Ingres painted several variants of these compositions; another nude begun in 1807, the ''
Venus Anadyomene
Venus Anadyomene (from Greek, "Venus Rising From the Sea") is one of the iconic representations of the goddess Venus (Aphrodite), made famous in a much-admired painting by Apelles, now lost, but described in Pliny's ''Natural History'', with t ...
'', remained in an unfinished state for decades, to be completed forty years later
[Condon et al. 1983, p. 64.] and finally exhibited in 1855.
![Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres - Oedipus and the Sphynx - WGA11843](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Jean_Auguste_Dominique_Ingres_-_Oedipus_and_the_Sphynx_-_WGA11843.jpg)
During his time in Rome he also painted numerous portraits: ''
Madame Duvaucey'' (1807), ''François-Marius Granet'' (1807), ''Joseph-Antoine Moltedo'' (1810), ''Madame Panckoucke'' (1811), and ''Charles-Joseph-Laurent Cordier'' (1811). In 1812 he painted one of his few portraits of an older woman, ''Comtesse de Tournon'', mother of the prefect of Rome. In 1810 Ingres's pension at the Villa Medici ended, but he decided to stay in Rome and seek patronage from the French occupation government.
In 1811 Ingres completed his final student exercise, the immense ''
Jupiter and Thetis'', a scene from the
Iliad
The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odysse ...
of Homer: the goddess of the Sea, Thetis, pleads with Zeus to act in favor of her son
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles ( ) or Achilleus ( grc-gre, Ἀχιλλεύς) was a hero of the Trojan War, the greatest of all the Greek warriors, and the central character of Homer's ''Iliad''. He was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Peleus, k ...
. The face of the water nymph
Salmacis
Salmacis ( grc, Σαλμακίς) was an atypical Naiad nymph of Greek mythology. She rejected the ways of the virginal Culture of Greece, Greek goddess Artemis in favour of vanity and idleness.
Mythology Ovid's version
Salmacis' attempted ...
he had drawn years earlier reappeared as Thetis. Ingres wrote with enthusiasm that he had been planning to paint this subject since 1806, and he intended to "deploy all of the luxury of art in its beauty". However, once again, the critics were hostile, finding fault with the exaggerated proportions of the figures and the painting's flat, airless quality.
Although facing uncertain prospects, in 1813 Ingres married a young woman,
Madeleine Chapelle
Madeleine may refer to:
Common meanings
*Madeleine (name), also Madeline, a feminine given name
*Madeleine (cake), a traditional sweet cake from France
*Mary Magdalene, also called the Madeleine
Arts and entertainment
* ''Madelein'' (1919 fi ...
, recommended to him by her friends in Rome. After a courtship carried out through correspondence, he proposed without having met her, and she accepted. Their marriage was happy; Madame Ingres's faith was unwavering. He continued to suffer disparaging reviews, as ''
Don Pedro of Toledo Kissing Henry IV's Sword
''Don Pedro of Toledo Kissing Henry IV's Sword'' was originally a painting of 1814 in the Troubador style by the French artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, showing the Spanish ambassador Pedro Álvarez de Toledo, 5th Marquis of Villafranca ki ...
'', ''Raphael and the Fornarina'' (
Fogg Art Museum
The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...
,
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
), several portraits, and the ''Interior of the
Sistine Chapel
The Sistine Chapel (; la, Sacellum Sixtinum; it, Cappella Sistina ) is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the pope in Vatican City. Originally known as the ''Cappella Magna'' ('Great Chapel'), the chapel takes its name ...
'' met with generally hostile critical response at the Paris Salon of 1814.
Rome after the Academy and Florence (1814–1824)
After he left the Academy, a few important commissions came to him. The French governor of Rome, General
Miollis, a wealthy patron of the arts, asked him to decorate rooms of the
Monte Cavallo
Monte Cavallo is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Macerata in the Italian region Marche, located about southwest of Ancona and about southwest of Macerata.
Monte Cavallo borders the following municipalities: Pieve Torina, Serrav ...
Palace, a former papal residence, for an expected visit of Napoleon. Ingres painted a large-scale ''
Romulus' Victory Over Acron'' (1811) for the salon of the Empress and ''
The Dream of Ossian
''The Dream of Ossian'' (french: Le Songe d'Ossian) is an 1813 painting by the French artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. The work depicts the legendary poet Ossian sleeping while he dreams of relatives, warriors, and maidens, which appear ab ...
'' (1813), based on a book of poems that Napoleon admired, for the ceiling of the Emperor's bedroom. General Miollis also commissioned Ingres to paint ''
Virgil reading The Aeneid before Augustus, Livia and Octavia
''Virgil reading the Aeneid before Augustus, Livia and Octavia'', known in French as '' Tu Marcellus Eris'', is an 1812 painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. It is an oil on canvas measuring 304 x 323 cm (120 x 127 in.) and is in the Mus ...
'' (1812) for his own residence, the villa Aldobrandini. The painting shows the moment when Virgil, reciting his work to the Emperor
Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...
, his wife
Livia
Livia Drusilla (30 January 59 BC – 28 September AD 29) was a Roman empress from 27 BC to AD 14 as the wife of Roman emperor, Emperor Augustus Caesar. She was known as Julia Augusta after her formal Adoption in ancient Rome, adoption into the J ...
and his sister
Octavia, mentions the name of Octavia's dead son,
Marcellus, causing Octavia to faint. The interior was precisely depicted, following the archeological finds at
Pompeii
Pompeii (, ) was an ancient city located in what is now the ''comune'' of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was buried ...
. As usual, Ingres made several versions of the same scene: a three-figure fragment cut from an abandoned version is in the
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (french: Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, nl, Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België) are a group of art museums in Brussels, Belgium. They include six museums: the Oldmasters Muse ...
in Brussels, and in 1825 he made a chalk drawing in vertical format as a model for a reproductive engraving made by Pradier in 1832. The General Miollis version was repurchased by Ingres in the 1830s, reworked by assistants under Ingres's direction, and never finished; ''The Dream of Ossian'' was likewise repurchased, modified, but left unfinished.
[Condon et al. 1983, p. 52.]
He traveled to Naples in the spring of 1814 to paint ''Queen
Caroline Murat
Carolina Maria Annunziata Bonaparte Murat Macdonald (French: ''Caroline Marie Annonciade Bonaparte''; 25 March 1782 – 18 May 1839), better known as Caroline Bonaparte, was an Imperial French princess; the seventh child and third daughter of Car ...
''.
Joachim Murat
Joachim Murat ( , also , ; it, Gioacchino Murati; 25 March 1767 – 13 October 1815) was a French military commander and statesman who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. Under the French Empire he received the ...
, the King of Naples, had earlier purchased the
Dormeuse de Naples, a sleeping nude (the original is lost, but several drawings exist, and Ingres later revisited the subject in ''L'Odalisque à l'esclave''). Murat also commissioned two historical paintings, ''Raphael et la Fornarina'' and ''Paolo et Francesca'', and what later became one of Ingres's most famous works, ''
La Grande Odalisque
''Grande Odalisque'', also known as ''Une Odalisque'' or ''La Grande Odalisque'', is an oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique f ...
'', to accompany ''Dormeuse de Naples''. Ingres never received payment, due to the collapse of the Murat regime and execution of Joachim Murat in 1815. With the fall of Napoleon's dynasty, he found himself essentially stranded in Rome without patronage.
![Jean-Auguste-Dominique INGRES - Tu Marcellus Eris - Musée des Augustins - RO 124](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Jean-Auguste-Dominique_INGRES_-_Tu_Marcellus_Eris_-_Mus%C3%A9e_des_Augustins_-_RO_124.jpg)
He continued to produce masterful portraits, in pencil and oils, of almost photographic precision; but with the departure of the French administration, the painting commissions were rare. During this low point of his career, Ingres augmented his income by drawing pencil portraits of the many wealthy tourists, in particular the English, passing through postwar Rome. For an artist who aspired to a reputation as a history painter, this seemed menial work, and to the visitors who knocked on his door asking, "Is this where the man who draws the little portraits lives?", he would answer with irritation, "No, the man who lives here is a painter!" The portrait drawings he produced in such profusion during this period rank today among his most admired works. He is estimated to have made some five hundred portrait drawings, including portraits of his famous friends. His friends included many musicians including
Paganini, and he regularly played the violin with others who shared his enthusiasm for
Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...
,
Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have led ...
,
Gluck
Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period (music), classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the ...
, and
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
.
[Arikha 1986, p. 104.]
He also produced a series of small paintings in what was known as the
Troubador style
Taking its name from medieval troubadours, the Troubadour Style (french: Style troubadour) is a rather derisive term, in English usually applied to French historical painting of the early 19th century with idealised depictions of the Middle Ages a ...
, idealized portrayals of events in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. In 1815 he painted ''
Aretino and Charles V's Ambassador
''Aretino and Charles V's Ambassador'' is a painting by the French artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, produced in an 1815 and an 1848 version. It is in the troubador style and shows Pietro Aretino facing Charles V's ambassador, who is trying ...
'' as well as ''Aretino and
Tintoretto
Tintoretto ( , , ; born Jacopo Robusti; late September or early October 1518Bernari and de Vecchi 1970, p. 83.31 May 1594) was an Italian painter identified with the Venetian school. His contemporaries both admired and criticized the speed with ...
'', an anecdotal painting whose subject, a painter brandishing a pistol at his critic, may have been especially satisfying to the embattled Ingres. Other paintings in the same style included ''Henry IV Playing with His Children'' (1817) and the ''Death of
Leonardo
Leonardo is a masculine given name, the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese equivalent of the English, German, and Dutch name, Leonard
Leonard or ''Leo'' is a common English masculine given name and a surname.
The given name and surname originate ...
.''
![Jean_Auguste_Dominique_Ingres_-_Roger_Delivering_Angelica](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Jean_Auguste_Dominique_Ingres_-_Roger_Delivering_Angelica.jpg)
In 1816 Ingres produced his only
etching
Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...
, a portrait of the French ambassador to Rome, Monsignor Gabriel Cortois de Pressigny. The only other prints he is known to have executed are two
lithograph
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
s: ''The Four Magistrates of Besançon'', made as an illustration for
Baron Taylor's ''Voyages pittoresques et romantiques dans l'ancienne France'', and a copy of ''La Grande Odalisque'', both in 1825.
In 1817 the
Count of Blacas, who was ambassador of France to the
Holy See
The Holy See ( lat, Sancta Sedes, ; it, Santa Sede ), also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the Pope in his role as the bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of Rome ...
, provided Ingres with his first official commission since 1814, for a painting of ''
Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, names and titles), was ...
Giving the Keys to
Peter
Peter may refer to:
People
* List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* Peter (given name)
** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church
* Peter (surname), a sur ...
''. Completed in 1820, this imposing work was well received in Rome but to the artist's chagrin the ecclesiastical authorities there would not permit it to be sent to Paris for exhibition.
A commission came in 1816 or 1817 from the descendants of the
Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva
Fernando is a Spanish and Portuguese given name and a surname common in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Switzerland, former Spanish or Portuguese colonies in Latin America, Africa, the Philippines, India, and Sri Lanka. It is equivalent to the G ...
, for a painting of the Duke receiving papal honours for his repression of the
Protestant Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
. Ingres loathed the subject—he regarded the Duke as one of history's brutes—and struggled to satisfy both the commission and his conscience. After revisions which eventually reduced the Duke to a tiny figure in the background, Ingres left the work unfinished. He entered in his diary, "J'etais forcé par la necessité de peindre un pareil tableau; Dieu a voulu qu'il reste en ebauche." ("I was forced by need to paint such a painting; God wanted it to remain a sketch.")
![Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, La Grande Odalisque, 1814](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Jean_Auguste_Dominique_Ingres%2C_La_Grande_Odalisque%2C_1814.jpg)
He continued to send works to the Salon in Paris, hoping to make his breakthrough there. In 1819 he sent his reclining nude, ''
La Grande Odalisque
''Grande Odalisque'', also known as ''Une Odalisque'' or ''La Grande Odalisque'', is an oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique f ...
'', as well as a history painting, ''
Philip V Philip V may refer to:
* Philip V of Macedon (221–179 BC)
* Philip V of France (1293–1322)
* Philip II of Spain, also Philip V, Duke of Burgundy (1526–1598)
* Philip V of Spain
Philip V ( es, Felipe; 19 December 1683 – 9 July 1746) was ...
and the Marshal of Berwick'', and ''
Roger Freeing Angelica'', based on an episode in the 16th-century epic poem ''
Orlando Furioso
''Orlando furioso'' (; ''The Frenzy of Orlando'', more loosely ''Raging Roland'') is an Italian epic poem by Ludovico Ariosto which has exerted a wide influence on later culture. The earliest version appeared in 1516, although the poem was no ...
'' by
Ariosto
Ludovico Ariosto (; 8 September 1474 – 6 July 1533) was an Italian poet. He is best known as the author of the romance epic ''Orlando Furioso'' (1516). The poem, a continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's ''Orlando Innamorato'', describes the ...
but his work was once again condemned by critics as gothic and unnatural. The critic Kératy complained that the Grande Odalisque's back was three vertebrae too long. The critic
Charles Landon wrote: "After a moment of attention, one sees that in this figure there are no bones, no muscles, no blood, no life, no relief, no anything which constitutes imitation....it is evident that the artist deliberately erred, that he wanted to do it badly, that he believed in bringing back to life the pure and primitive manner of the painters of Antiquity; but he took for his model a few fragments from earlier periods and a degenerate execution, and completely lost his way."
In 1820 Ingres and his wife moved to
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
at the urging of the Florentine sculptor
Lorenzo Bartolini
Lorenzo Bartolini (Prato, 7 January 1777 Florence, 20 January 1850) was an Italian sculptor who infused his neoclassicism with a strain of sentimental piety and naturalistic detail, while he drew inspiration from the sculpture of the Florentine ...
, an old friend from his years in Paris. He still had to depend upon his portraits and drawings for income, but his luck began to change. His history painting ''Roger Freeing Angelica'' was purchased for the private collection of Louis XVIII, and was hung in the
Musée du Luxembourg
The Musée du Luxembourg () is a museum at 19 rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. Established in 1750, it was initially an art museum located in the east wing of the Luxembourg Palace (the matching west wing housed the Marie de' M ...
in Paris, which was newly devoted to the work of living artists. This was the first work of Ingres to enter a museum.
In 1821 he finished a painting commissioned by a childhood friend, Monsieur de Pastoret, ''
The Entry into Paris of the Dauphin, the Future Charles V''; de Pastoret also ordered a portrait of himself and a religious work (''Virgin with the Blue Veil''). In August 1820, with the help of de Pastoret, he received a commission for a major religious painting for the Cathedral of Montauban. The theme was the re-establishment of the bond between the church and the state. Ingres's painting, ''
The Vow of Louis XIII
''The Vow of Louis XIII'' is an 1824 painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, now in Montauban Cathedral. The oil painting shows a vow to the Virgin Mary by Louis XIII of France.
It was commissioned by France's Ministry of Interior in August ...
'' (1824), inspired by Raphael, was purely in the Renaissance style, and depicted King Louis XIII vowing to dedicate his reign to the Virgin Mary. This was perfectly in tune with the doctrine of the new government of the Restoration. He spent four years bringing the large canvas to completion, and he took it to the Paris Salon in October 1824, where it became the key that finally opened the door of the Paris art establishment and to his career as an official painter.
Return to Paris and retreat to Rome (1824–1834)
![Le Voeu de Louis XIII](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Le_Voeu_de_Louis_XIII.jpg)
The ''Vow of Louis XIII'' in the Salon of 1824 finally brought Ingres critical success. Although
Stendhal
Marie-Henri Beyle (; 23 January 1783 – 23 March 1842), better known by his pen name Stendhal (, ; ), was a 19th-century French writer. Best known for the novels ''Le Rouge et le Noir'' (''The Red and the Black'', 1830) and ''La Chartreuse de P ...
complained about "the sort of material beauty which excludes the idea of divinity", most critics praised the work. The journalist and future Prime Minister and French President
Adolphe Thiers
Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers ( , ; 15 April 17973 September 1877) was a French statesman and historian. He was the second elected President of France and first President of the French Third Republic.
Thiers was a key figure in the July Rev ...
celebrated the breakthrough of a new style: "Nothing is better than variety like this, the essential character of the new style." In January 1825 Ingres was awarded the Cross of the
Légion d'honneur
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
by
Charles X
Charles X (born Charles Philippe, Count of Artois; 9 October 1757 – 6 November 1836) was King of France from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. An uncle of the uncrowned Louis XVII and younger brother to reigning kings Louis XVI and Loui ...
, and in June 1825 he was elected a member of Académie des Beaux-Arts.
Lithograph
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
s of ''La Grande Odalisque'' published in 1826 in two competing versions by Delpech and Sudré found eager buyers; Ingres received 24,000 francs for the reproduction rights – twenty times the amount he had been paid for the original painting six years earlier. The 1824 Salon also brought forward a counter-current to the neoclassicism of Ingres:
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
exhibited ''Les Massacres de Scio'', in a romantic style sharply contrasting to that of Ingres.
The success of Ingres's painting led in 1826 to a major new commission, ''
The Apotheosis of Homer'', a giant canvas which celebrated all the great artists of history, intended to decorate the ceiling of one of the halls of the Museum Charles X at the Louvre. Ingres was unable to finish the work in time for the 1827 Salon, but displayed the painting in
grisaille
Grisaille ( or ; french: grisaille, lit=greyed , from ''gris'' 'grey') is a painting executed entirely in shades of grey or of another neutral greyish colour. It is particularly used in large decorative schemes in imitation of sculpture. Many g ...
. The 1827 Salon became a confrontation between the neoclassicism of Ingres's ''Apotheosis'' and a new manifesto of romanticism by Delacroix, ''
The Death of Sardanapalus
''The Death of Sardanapalus'' (''La Mort de Sardanapale'') is an oil painting on canvas by Eugène Delacroix, dated 1827. It currently hangs in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. A smaller replica, painted by Delacroix in 1844, is now in the Philadelph ...
''. Ingres joined the battle with enthusiasm; he called Delacroix "the apostle of ugliness" and told friends that he recognized "the talent, the honorable character and distinguished spirit" of Delacroix, but that "he has tendencies which I believe are dangerous and which I must push back."
![Ingres Martyre Saint-Symphorien](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Ingres_Martyre_Saint-Symphorien.jpg)
Despite the considerable patronage he enjoyed under the Bourbon government, Ingres welcomed the
July Revolution
The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution (french: révolution de Juillet), Second French Revolution, or ("Three Glorious ays), was a second French Revolution after the first in 1789. It led to the overthrow of King ...
of 1830. That the outcome of the Revolution was not a republic but a constitutional monarchy was satisfactory to the essentially conservative and pacifistic artist, who in a letter to a friend in August 1830 criticized agitators who "still want to soil and disturb the order and happiness of a freedom so gloriously, so divinely won." Ingres's career was little affected, and he continued to receive official commissions and honors under the
July Monarchy
The July Monarchy (french: Monarchie de Juillet), officially the Kingdom of France (french: Royaume de France), was a liberal constitutional monarchy in France under , starting on 26 July 1830, with the July Revolution of 1830, and ending 23 F ...
.
Ingres exhibited in the Salon of 1833, where his portrait of ''
Louis-François Bertin
Louis-François Bertin, also known as Bertin l'Aîné (''Bertin the Elder''; 14 December 176613 September 1841), was a French journalist. He had a younger brother, Louis-François Bertin de Vaux; two sons, Edouard François and Louis-Marie F ...
'' (1832) was a particular success. The public found its realism spellbinding, although some of the critics declared its naturalism vulgar and its colouring drab. In 1834 he finished a large religious painting, ''
The Martyrdom of Saint Symphorian
''The Martyrdom of Saint Symphorian'' is an 1834 painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. It shows the death of Symphorian and Timotheus, Saint Symphorian, the first Christian martyr in Gaul. Painted in oil on canvas and measuring 407 x 339 cm, ...
'', which depicted the first saint to be martyred in Gaul. The painting was commissioned in 1824 by the Ministry of the Interior for the Cathedral of
Autun
Autun () is a subprefecture of the Saône-et-Loire department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of central-eastern France. It was founded during the Principate era of the early Roman Empire by Emperor Augustus as Augustodunum to give a Ro ...
, and the iconography in the picture was specified by the bishop. Ingres conceived the painting as the summation of all of his work and skill, and worked on it for ten years before displaying it at the 1834 Salon. He was surprised, shocked and angered by the response; the painting was attacked by both the neoclassicists and by the romantics. Ingres was accused of historical inaccuracy, for the colours, and for the feminine appearance of the Saint, who looked like a beautiful statue. In anger, Ingres announced that he would no longer accept public commissions, and that he would no longer participate in the Salon. He later did participate in some semi-public expositions and a retrospective of his work at the
1855 Paris International Exposition, but never again took part in the Salon or submitted his work for public judgement. Instead, at the end of 1834 he returned to Rome to become the Director of the Academy of France.
Director of the French Academy in Rome (1834–1841)
Ingres remained in Rome for six years. He devoted much of his attention to the training of the painting students, as he was later to do at the
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth century ...
in Paris. He re-organized the Academy, increased the size of the library, added many molds of classical statues to the Academy collection, and assisted the students in getting public commissions in both Rome and Paris. He traveled to
Orvieto
Orvieto () is a city and ''comune'' in the Province of Terni, southwestern Umbria, Italy, situated on the flat summit of a large butte of volcanic tuff. The city rises dramatically above the almost-vertical faces of tuff cliffs that are compl ...
(1835),
Siena
Siena ( , ; lat, Sena Iulia) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.
The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centuri ...
(1835), and to
Ravenna
Ravenna ( , , also ; rgn, Ravèna) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire from 408 until its collapse in 476. It then served as the cap ...
and
Urbino
Urbino ( ; ; Romagnol: ''Urbìn'') is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of ...
to study the paleochristian mosaics, medieval murals and Renaissance art. He devoted considerable attention to music, one of the subjects of the academy; he welcomed
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
and
Fanny Mendelssohn
Fanny Mendelssohn (14 November 1805 – 14 May 1847) was a German composer and pianist of the early Romantic era who was also known as Fanny (Cäcilie) Mendelssohn Bartholdy and, after her marriage, Fanny Hensel (as well as Fanny Mendelssohn He ...
. He formed a long friendship with Liszt. The composer
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (18 ...
, who was a pensioner at the time at the Academy, described Ingres's appreciation of modern music, including Weber and Berlioz, and his adoration for Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart and Gluck. He joined the music students and his friend Niccolò Paganini in playing Beethoven's violin works. Gounod wrote that Ingres "had the tenderness of an infant and the indignation of an apostle." When Stendhal visited the Academy and disparaged Beethoven, Ingres turned to the doorman, indicated Stendhal, and told him, "If this gentleman ever calls again, I am not here."
His rancor against the Paris art establishment for his failure at the 1834 Salon did not abate. In 1836 he refused a major commission from the French Minister of the Interior,
Adolphe Thiers
Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers ( , ; 15 April 17973 September 1877) was a French statesman and historian. He was the second elected President of France and first President of the French Third Republic.
Thiers was a key figure in the July Rev ...
, to decorate the interior of the Church of the Madeleine in Paris, because the commission had been offered first to a rival, Paul Delaroche, who refused it. He did complete a small number of works which he sent to patrons in Paris. One was ''L'Odalisque et l'esclave'', (1839), a portrait of a blonde odalisque, or member of a harem, who reclines languorously while a turbaned musician plays. This fitted into the popular genre of orientalism; his rival
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
had created a painting on a similar theme, ''Women of Algiers, Les Femmes d'Alger'', for the 1834 Salon. The setting was inspired by Persian miniatures and was full of exotic detail, but the woman's long reclining form was pure Ingres. The critic Théophile Gautier wrote of Ingres's work: "It is impossible to better paint the mystery, the silence and the suffocating atmosphere of the seraglio." In 1842 he painted a second version, nearly identical to the first but with a landscape background (painted by his student Paul Flandrin).
![Antiochus et stratonice - Ingres - Musée Condé](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Antiochus_et_stratonice_-_Ingres_-_Mus%C3%A9e_Cond%C3%A9.jpg)
The second painting he sent, in 1840, was ''The Illness of Antiochus'' (1840; also known as ''Aniochus and Stratonice'') a history painting on a theme of love and sacrifice, a theme once painted by David in 1800, when Ingres was in his studio. It was commissioned by the Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans, Duc d'Orleans, the son of King Louis Philippe I), and had very elaborate architectural background designed by one of the Academy students, Victor Baltard, the future architect of the Paris market Les Halles. The central figure was an ethereal woman in white, whose contemplative pose with her hand on her chin recurs in some of Ingres's female portraits.
His painting of Aniochius and Stratonice, despite its small size, just one meter, was a major success for Ingres. In August it was shown in the private apartment of the duc d'Orléans in the Pavilion Marsan of the Palais des Tuileries. The King greeted him personally at Versailles and gave him a tour of the Palace. He was offered a commission to paint a portrait of the Duke, the heir to the throne, and another from the Duc de Lunyes to create two huge murals for the Château de Dampierre. In April 1841 he returned definitively to Paris.
Last years (1841–1867)
![Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres - The Spring - Google Art Project 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Jean_Auguste_Dominique_Ingres_-_The_Spring_-_Google_Art_Project_2.jpg)
One of the first works executed after his return to Paris was a portrait of the duc d'Orléans. After the heir to the throne was killed in a carriage accident a few months after the painting was completed in 1842, Ingres received commissions to make additional copies. He also received a commission to design seventeen stained glass windows for the chapel on the place where the accident occurred, and a commission for eight additional stained-glass designs for Orléans chapel in Dreux. He became a professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He took his students frequently to the Louvre to the see the classical and Renaissance art, instructing them to look straight ahead and to avoid the works of Rubens, which he believed deviated too far from the true values of art.
The Revolution of 1848, which overthrew Louis Philippe and created the French Second Republic, had little effect on his work or his ideas. He declared that the revolutionaries were "cannibals who called themselves French", but during the Revolution completed his ''
Venus Anadyomene
Venus Anadyomene (from Greek, "Venus Rising From the Sea") is one of the iconic representations of the goddess Venus (Aphrodite), made famous in a much-admired painting by Apelles, now lost, but described in Pliny's ''Natural History'', with t ...
'', which he had started as an academic study in 1808. It represented Venus, rising from the sea which had given birth to her, surrounded by cherubs. He welcomed the patronage of the new government of Louis-Napoleon, who in 1852 became Emperor Napoleon III.
In 1843 Ingres began the decorations of the great hall in the Château de Dampierre with two large murals, the ''Golden Age'' and the ''Iron Age'', illustrating the origins of art. He made more than five hundred preparatory drawings, and worked on the enormous project for six years. In an attempt to imitate the effect of Renaissance frescos, he chose to paint the murals in oil on plaster, which created technical difficulties. Work on the ''Iron Age'' never progressed beyond the architectural background painted by an assistant. Meanwhile, the growing crowd of nudes in the ''Golden Age'' discomfited Ingres's patron, the Duc de Luynes, and Ingres suspended work on the mural in 1847. Ingres was devastated by the loss of his wife, who died on 27 July 1849, and he was finally unable to complete the work. In July 1851, he announced a gift of his artwork to his native city of Montauban, and in October he resigned as professor at the École des Beaux-Arts.
However, in 1852, Ingres, then seventy-one years of age, married forty-three-year-old Delphine Ramel, a relative of his friend Marcotte d'Argenteuil. Ingres was rejuvenated, and in the decade that followed he completed several significant works, including the portrait of ''Princesse Albert de Broglie, née Joséphine-Eléonore-Marie-Pauline de Galard de Brassac de Béarn''. In 1853 he began the ''Apotheosis of Napoleon I'', for the ceiling of a hall in the Hôtel de Ville, Paris. (It was destroyed in May 1871 when the Paris Commune set fire to the building.) With the help of assistants, in 1854 he completed another history painting, ''Joan of Arc at the Coronation of Charles VII''. A retrospective of his works was featured at the Exposition Universelle (1855), Paris Universal Exposition of 1855, and in the same year Napoleon III named him a Grand Officer of the
Légion d'honneur
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
. In 1862 he was awarded the title of Senator, and made a member of the Imperial Council on Public Instruction. Three of his works were shown in the London International Exhibition, and his reputation as a major French painter was confirmed once more.
![Ingres-autoportrait-1858 Florence](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Ingres-autoportrait-1858_Florence.jpg)
He continued to rework and refine his classic themes. In 1856 Ingres completed ''The Source (Ingres), The Source'' (The Spring), a painting begun in 1820 and closely related to his ''Venus Anadyoméne''.
He painted two versions of ''Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV and Molière'' (1857 and 1860), and produced variant copies of several of his earlier compositions. These included religious works in which the figure of the Virgin from ''The Vow of Louis XIII'' was reprised: ''The Virgin of the Adoption'' of 1858 (painted for Mademoiselle Roland-Gosselin) was followed by ''The Virgin Crowned'' (painted for Madame la Baronne de Larinthie) and ''The Virgin with Child''. In 1859 he produced new versions of ''The Virgin of the Host'', and in 1862 he completed ''Christ and the Doctors'', a work commissioned many years before by Queen Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily, Marie Amalie for the chapel of Bizy.
[ He painted small replicas of ''Paolo and Francesca'' and ''Oedipus and the Sphinx''. In 1862 he completed a small oil-on-paper version of ''The Golden Age''. The last of his important portrait paintings date from this period: ''Madame Moitessier, Marie-Clothilde-Inés de Foucauld, Madame Moitessier, Seated'' (1856), ''Self-Portrait at Seventy-Eight (Ingres), Self-Portrait at the Age of Seventy-eight'' and ''Madame J.-A.-D. Ingres, née Delphine Ramel'', both completed in 1859. At the request of the Uffizi Gallery of Florence, he made his own-self portrait in 1858. The only colour in the painting is the red of his rosette of the Legion of Honour.
Near the end of his life, he made one of his best-known masterpieces, '']The Turkish Bath
''The Turkish Bath'' (') is an oil painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, initially completed between 1852 and 1859, but modified in 1862. The painting depicts a group of nude women at a pool in a harem. It has an erotic style that evokes ...
''. It reprised a figure and theme he had been painting since 1828, with his ''Petite Baigneuse''. Originally completed in a square format in 1852 and sold to Prince Napoleon in 1859, it was returned to the artist soon afterward—according to a legend, Princess Clothilde was shocked by the abundant nudity. After reworking the painting as a ''Tondo (art), tondo'', Ingres signed and dated it in 1862, although he made additional revisions in 1863.[Prat 2004, p. 90.] The painting was eventually purchased by a Turkish diplomat, Khalid Bey, who owned a large collection of nudes and erotic art, including several paintings by Courbet. The painting continued to cause a scandal long after Ingres was dead. It was initially offered to the Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
in 1907, but was rejected, before being given to the Louvre in 1911.
Ingres died of pneumonia on 14 January 1867, at the age of eighty-six, in his apartment on the Quai Voltaire in Paris. He is interred in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris with a tomb sculpted by his student Jean-Marie Bonnassieux. The contents of his studio, including a number of major paintings, over 4000 drawings, and his violin, were bequeathed by the artist to the city museum of Montauban, now known as the Musée Ingres.
Style
Ingres's style was formed early in life and changed comparatively little. His earliest drawings, such as the ''Portrait of a Man'' (or ''Portrait of an unknown'', 3 July 1797, now in the Louvre) already show a suavity of outline and an extraordinary control of the parallel hatchings which model the forms. From the first, his paintings are characterized by a firmness of outline reflecting his often-quoted conviction that "drawing is the probity of art". He believed colour to be no more than an accessory to drawing, explaining: "Drawing is not just reproducing contours, it is not just the line; drawing is also the expression, the inner form, the composition, the modelling. See what is left after that. Drawing is seven eighths of what makes up painting."
The art historian Jean Clay said Ingres "proceeded always from certitude to certitude, with the result that even his freest sketches reveal the same kind of execution as that found in the final works."[Clay 1981, p. 132.] In depicting the human body he disregarded rules of anatomy—which he termed a "dreadful science that I cannot think of without disgust"—in his quest for a sinuous arabesque. Abhorring the visible brushstroke, Ingres made no recourse to the shifting effects of colour and light on which the romanticism, Romantic school depended; he preferred local colours only faintly modelled in light by half tones. "Ce que l'on sait," he would repeat, "il faut le savoir l'épée à la main." ("Whatever you know, you must know it with sword in hand.") Ingres thus left himself without the means of producing the necessary unity of effect when dealing with crowded compositions, such as the ''Apotheosis of Homer'' and the ''Martyrdom of Saint Symphorian''. Among Ingres's historical and mythological paintings, the most satisfactory are usually those depicting one or two figures, such as ''Oedipus'', ''The Half-Length Bather'', ''Odalisque'', and ''The Spring'', subjects only animated by the consciousness of perfect physical well-being.
In '' Roger Freeing Angelica'', the female nude seems merely juxtaposed with the meticulously rendered but inert figure of Roger flying to the rescue on his hippogriff, for Ingres was rarely successful in the depiction of movement and drama. According to Sanford Schwartz, the "historical, mythological, and religious pictures bespeak huge amounts of energy and industry, but, conveying little palpable sense of inner tension, are costume dramas ... The faces in the history pictures are essentially those of models waiting for the session to be over. When an emotion is to be expressed, it comes across stridently, or woodenly."
Ingres was averse to theories, and his allegiance to classicism—with its emphasis on the ideal, the generalized, and the regular—was tempered by his love of the particular. He believed that "the secret of beauty has to be found through truth. The ancients did not create, they did not make; they recognized." In many of Ingres's works there is a collision between the idealized and the particular that creates what Robert Rosenblum termed an "oil-and-water sensation". This contradiction is vivid in ''Cherubini and the Muse of Lyric Poetry'' (1842), for example, in which the realistically painted 81-year-old composer is attended by an idealized muse in classical drapery.
Ingres's choice of subjects reflected his literary tastes, which were severely limited: he read and reread Homer, Virgil, Plutarch, Dante, histories, and the lives of the artists. Throughout his life he revisited a small number of favourite themes, and painted multiple versions of many of his major compositions. He did not share his age's enthusiasm for battle scenes, and generally preferred to depict "moments of revelation or intimate decision manifested by meeting or confrontation, but never by violence." His numerous odalisque paintings were influenced to a great extent by the writings of Mary Wortley Montagu, the wife of the ambassador to Turkey whose diaries and letters, when published, fascinated European society.
Although capable of painting quickly, he often laboured for years over a painting. Ingres's pupil Eugène Emmanuel Amaury-Duval, Amaury-Duval wrote of him: "With this facility of execution, one has trouble explaining why Ingres' oeuvre is not still larger, but he scraped out [his work] frequently, never being satisfied ... and perhaps this facility itself made him rework whatever dissatisfied him, certain that he had the power to repair the fault, and quickly, too." Ingres's ''Venus Anadyomene'' was begun in 1807 but not completed until 1848, after a long hiatus resulting from his indecision about the position of the arms. ''The Source'' (1856) had a similar history. It was begun in the 1820s as a sketch of "such simplicity that one would suppose she had been painted in a single stroke" according to Amaury-Duval, who believed that Ingres' reworking of the painting in 1855 was a loss.
Portraits
Image:Ingres, Madame Riviere.jpg, ''Portrait of Marie-Françoise Rivière'' (1805–06), oil on canvas, 116.5 x 81.7 cm, Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
File:Ingres Marcotte d-Argenteuil.jpg, ''Portrait of Charles Marcotte'' (1810), National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
File:Louis-Francois Bertin.jpg, ''Portrait of Monsieur Bertin
''Portrait of Monsieur Bertin'' is an 1832 oil on canvas painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. It depicts Louis-François Bertin (1766–1841), the French writer, art collector and director of the pro-royalist ''Journal des débats''. Ingr ...
'' (1832), the Louvre
File:Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres - Comtesse d'Haussonville - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Portrait of Comtesse d'Haussonville'' (1845), Frick Collection, New York
Image:Jean auguste dominique ingres baronne james de rothschild.jpg, ''Portrait of Baronne de Rothschild'' (1848), Rothschild Collection, Paris
While Ingres believed that history painting was the highest form of art, his modern reputation rests largely upon the exceptional quality of his portraits. By the time of his retrospective at the Exposition Universelle in 1855, an emerging consensus viewed his portrait paintings as his masterpieces. Their consistently high quality belies Ingres's often-stated complaint that the demands of portraiture robbed him of time he could have spent painting historical subjects. Baudelaire called him "the sole man in France who truly makes portraits. The portraits of M. Bertin, M. Molé and Mme d'Haussonville are true portraits, that is, the ideal reconstruction of individuals....A good portrait seems to me always as a biography dramatized." His most famous portrait is that of Louis-François Bertin, the chief editor of the ''Journal des Debats'', which was widely admired when it was exhibited at the 1833 Salon. Ingres had originally planned to paint Bertin standing, but many hours of effort ended in a creative impasse before he decided on a seated pose. Édouard Manet described the resulting portrait as "The Buddha of the Bourgeoisie". The portrait quickly became a symbol of the rising economic and political power of Bertin's social class.[Tinterow, Conisbee et al. 1999, p. 300.]
For his female portraits, he often posed the subject after a classical statue; the famous portrait of the Comtesse de'Haussonville may have been modeled after a Roman statue called "Pudicity" ("modesty") in the Vatican collection. Another trick that Ingres used was to paint the fabrics and details in the portraits with extreme precision and accuracy, but to idealize the face. The eye of the viewer would perceive the fabrics as realistic and would assume the face was equally true. His portraits of women range from the warmly sensuous ''Madame de Senonnes'' (1814) to the realistic ''Mademoiselle Jeanne Gonin'' (1821), the Juno (mythology), Junoesque ''Marie-Clothilde-Inés de Foucauld, Madame Moitessier'' (portrayed standing and seated, 1851 and 1856), and the chilly ''Joséphine-Eléonore-Marie-Pauline de Galard de Brassac de Béarn, Princesse de Broglie'' (1853).
Drawings
File:Ingres Study for La Grande Odalisque 1814.jpg, Study for the ''Grande Odalisque'' (1814)
File:NiccoloPaganini.jpeg, The violinist Niccolo Paganini (1819)
File:Vicomtess Othenin d'Haussonville, nee Louise Albertine de Broglie, study.jpg, Study for the portrait of the Vicomtesse d'Haussonville (circa 1844)
File:Ingres Etude Bain Turc Louvre 1859.jpg, Study for ''The Turkish Bath
''The Turkish Bath'' (') is an oil painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, initially completed between 1852 and 1859, but modified in 1862. The painting depicts a group of nude women at a pool in a harem. It has an erotic style that evokes ...
'' (1859)
Drawing was the foundation of Ingres's art. In the Ecole des Beaux-Arts he excelled at figure drawing, winning the top prizes. During his years in Rome and Florence, he made hundreds of drawings of family, friends, and visitors, many of them of very high portrait quality. He never began a painting without first resolving the drawing, usually with a long series of drawing in which he refined the composition. In the case of his large history paintings, each figure in the painting was the subject of numerous sketches and studies as he tried different poses. He demanded that his students at the Academy and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts perfect their drawing before anything else; he declared that a "thing well drawn is always a thing well painted".
His portrait drawings, of which about 450 are extant, are today among his most admired works. While a disproportionate number of them date from his difficult early years in Italy, he continued to produce portrait drawings of his friends until the end of his life. Agnes Mongan has written of the portrait drawings:Before his departure in the fall of 1806 from Paris for Rome, the familiar characteristics of his drawing style were well established, the delicate yet firm contour, the definite yet discreet distortions of form, the almost uncanny capacity to seize a likeness in the precise yet lively delineation of features.
The preferred materials were also already established: the sharply pointed graphite pencil on a smooth white paper. So familiar to us are both the materials and the manner that we forget how extraordinary they must have seemed at the time ... Ingres' manner of drawing was as new as the century. It was immediately recognized as expert and admirable. If his paintings were sternly criticized as "Gothic," no comparable criticism was leveled at his drawings.
His student Raymond Balze described Ingres's working routine in executing his portrait drawings, each of which required four hours, as "an hour and a half in the morning, then two-and-a-half hours in the afternoon, he very rarely retouched it the next day. He often told me that he got the essence of the portrait while lunching with the model who, off guard, became more natural." The resulting drawings, according to John Canaday, revealed the sitters' personalities by means so subtle—and so free of cruelty—that Ingres could "expose the vanities of a fop, a silly woman, or a windbag, in drawings that delighted them."
Ingres drew his portrait drawings on wove paper, which provided a smooth surface very different from the ribbed surface of laid paper (which is, nevertheless, sometimes referred to today as "Ingres paper"). The early drawings are characterized by very taut contours drawn with sharply pointed graphite, while later drawings show freer lines and more emphatic modeling, drawn with a softer, blunter graphite.
Drawings made in preparation for paintings, such as the many studies for ''The Martyrdom of St. Symphorian'' and ''The Golden Age'', are more varied in size and treatment than are the portrait drawings. It was his usual practice to make many drawings of nude models, in search of the most eloquent gesture, before making another series of drawings for the draperies. In his early years he sometimes had his model pose behind a translucent veil that suppressed details and emphasized the arabesque. He often used female models when testing poses for male figures, as he did in drawings for ''Jesus Among the Doctors''. Nude studies exist even for some of his commissioned portraits, but these were drawn using hired models.
Ingres drew a number of Landscape art, landscape views while in Rome, but he painted only one pure landscape, the small tondo ''Raphael's Casino'' (although two other small landscape tondos are sometimes attributed to him).
Colour
For Ingres, colour played an entirely secondary role in art. He wrote, "Colour adds ornament to a painting; but it is nothing but the handmaiden, because all it does is to render more agreeable the true perfections of the art. Rubens and Van Dyck can be pleasing at first sight, but they are deceptive; they are from the poor school of colourists, the school of deception. Never use bright colours, they are anti-historic. It is better to fall into gray than to into bright colours." The Institute in Paris complained in 1838 that the students of Ingres in Rome "had a deplorable lack of knowledge of the truth and power of colour, and a knowledge of the different effects of light. A dull and opaque effect is found in all their canvases. They seem to have only been lit by twilight." The poet and critic Baudelaire observed: "the students of M. Ingres have very uselessly avoided any semblance of colour; they believe or pretend to believe that they are not needed in painting."
Ingres's own paintings vary considerably in their use of colour, and critics were apt to fault them as too grey or, contrarily, too jarring.[Ribeiro 1999, p. 18.] Baudelaire—who said "M. Ingres adores colour like a fashionable milliner"—wrote of the portraits of Louis-François Bertin and Madame d'Haussonville: "Open your eyes, nation of simpletons, and tell us if you ever saw such dazzling, eye-catching painting, or even a greater elaboration of colour". Ingres's paintings are often characterized by strong local colours, such as the "acid blues and bottle greens" Kenneth Clark professed to "perversely enjoy" in ''La Grande Odalisque
''Grande Odalisque'', also known as ''Une Odalisque'' or ''La Grande Odalisque'', is an oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique f ...
''. In other works, especially in his less formal portraits such as the ''Mademoiselle Jeanne-Suzanne-Catherine Gonin'' (1821), colour is restrained.
Ingres and Delacroix
Ingres and Delacroix became, in the mid-19th century, the most prominent representatives of the two competing schools of art in France, neoclassicism and romanticism. Neo-classicism was based in large part on the philosophy of Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768), who wrote that art should embody "noble simplicity and calm grandeur". Many painters followed this course, including François Gérard, Antoine-Jean Gros
Antoine-Jean Gros (; 16 March 177125 June 1835) was a French painter of historical subjects. He was given title of Baron Gros in 1824.
Gros studied under Jacques-Louis David in Paris and began an independent artistic career during the French R ...
, Anne-Louis Girodet, and Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in ...
, the teacher of Ingres. A competing school, romanticism, emerged first in Germany, and moved quickly to France. It rejected the idea of the imitation of classical styles, which it described as "gothic" and "primitive". The Romanticists in French painting were led by Théodore Géricault and especially Delacroix. The rivalry first emerged at the Paris Salon of 1824, where Ingres exhibited ''The Vow of Louis XIII'', inspired by Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of works by Raphael, His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of ...
, while Delacroix showed ''The Massacre at Chios'', depicting a tragic event in the Greek War of Independence. Ingres's painting was calm, static and carefully constructed, while the work of Delacroix was turbulent, full of motion, colour, and emotion.
The dispute between the two painters and schools reappeared at the 1827 Salon, where Ingres presented ''L'Apotheose d'Homer'', an example of classical balance and harmony, while Delacroix showed ''The Death of Sardanapalus
''The Death of Sardanapalus'' (''La Mort de Sardanapale'') is an oil painting on canvas by Eugène Delacroix, dated 1827. It currently hangs in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. A smaller replica, painted by Delacroix in 1844, is now in the Philadelph ...
'', another glittering and tumultuous scene of violence. The duel between the two painters, each considered the best of his school, continued over the years. Paris artists and intellectuals were passionately divided by the conflict, although modern art historians tend to regard Ingres and other Neoclassicists as embodying the Romantic spirit of their time.
At the 1855 Universal Exposition, both Delacroix and Ingres were well represented. The supporters of Delacroix and the romantics heaped abuse on the work of Ingres. The Brothers Goncourt described "the miserly talent" of Ingres: "Faced with history, M. Ingres calls vainly to his assistance a certain wisdom, decency, convenience, correction and a reasonable dose of the spiritual elevation that a graduate of a college demands. He scatters persons around the center of the action ... tosses here and there an arm, a leg, a head perfectly drawn, and thinks that his job is done..."
Baudelaire also, previously sympathetic toward Ingres, shifted toward Delacroix. "M. Ingres can be considered a man gifted with high qualities, an eloquent evoker of beauty, but deprived of the energetic temperament which creates the fatality of genius."
Delacroix himself was merciless toward Ingres. Describing the exhibition of works by Ingres at the 1855 Exposition, he called it "ridiculous ... presented, as one knows, in a rather pompous fashion ... It is the complete expression of an incomplete intelligence; effort and pretension are everywhere; nowhere is there found a spark of the natural."
According to Ingres' student Paul Chenavard, later in their careers, Ingres and Delacroix accidentally met on the steps of the French Institute; Ingres put his hand out, and the two shook amicably.
Pupils
Ingres was a conscientious teacher and was greatly admired by his students. The best known of them is Théodore Chassériau, who studied with him from 1830, as a precocious eleven-year-old, until Ingres closed his studio in 1834 to return to Rome. Ingres considered Chassériau his truest disciple—even predicting, according to an early biographer, that he would be "the Napoleon of painting". By the time Chassériau visited Ingres in Rome in 1840, however, the younger artist's growing allegiance to the romantic style of Eugène Delacroix, Delacroix was apparent, leading Ingres to disown his favourite student, of whom he subsequently spoke rarely and censoriously. No other artist who studied under Ingres succeeded in establishing a strong identity; among the most notable of them were Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin, Henri Lehmann, and Eugène Emmanuel Amaury-Duval.
Influence on modern art
Ingres's influence on later generations of artists was considerable. One of his heirs was Degas, who studied under Louis Lamothe, a minor disciple of Ingres. In the 20th century, his influence was even stronger. Pablo Picasso, Picasso and Henri Matisse, Matisse were among those who acknowledged a debt to Ingres; Matisse described him as the first painter "to use pure colours, outlining them without distorting them." The startling effects of Ingres's paintings—the collapsing of traditional depth and perspective and the presentation of figures "like the figures in a deck of cards"—were criticized in the 19th century but were welcomed by the avant-garde in the 20th century.
An important retrospective of works by Ingres was held at the Salon d'automne in Paris in 1905, which was visited by Picasso, Matisse, and many other artists. The original and striking composition of "The Turkish Bath", shown for the first time in public, had a visible influence on the composition and poses of the figures in Picasso's ''Les Demoiselles d'Avignon'' in 1907. The exhibit also included many of his studies for the unfinished mural ''l'Age d'or'', including a striking drawing of women gracefully dancing in a circle. Matisse produced his own version on this composition in his painting ''La Danse'' in 1909. The particular pose and colouring of Ingres's ''Portrait of Monsieur Bertin
''Portrait of Monsieur Bertin'' is an 1832 oil on canvas painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. It depicts Louis-François Bertin (1766–1841), the French writer, art collector and director of the pro-royalist ''Journal des débats''. Ingr ...
'' also made a reappearance in Picasso's ''Portrait of Gertrude Stein'' (1906).
Barnett Newman credited Ingres as a progenitor of abstract expressionism, explaining: "That guy was an abstract painter ... He looked at the canvas more often than at the model. Franz Kline, Kline, Willem de Kooning, de Kooning—none of us would have existed without him."
Pierre Barousse, the curator of the Musée Ingres, wrote: ...One realizes in how many ways a variety of artists claim him as their master, from the most plainly conventional of the nineteenth century such as Alexandre Cabanel, Cabanel or William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Bouguereau, to the most revolutionary of our century from Matisse to Picasso. A classicist? Above all, he was moved by the impulse to penetrate the secret of natural beauty and to reinterpret it through its own means; an attitude fundamentally different to that of David ... there results a truly personal and unique art admired as much by the Cubism, Cubists for its plastic autonomy, as by the Surrealism, Surrealists for its visionary qualities.
''Violon d'Ingres''
Ingres's well-known passion for playing the violin gave rise to a common expression in the French language, "''violon d'Ingres''", meaning a second skill beyond the one by which a person is mainly known.
Ingres was an amateur violin player from his youth, and played for a time as second violinist for the orchestra of Toulouse. When he was Director of the French Academy in Rome, he played frequently with the music students and guest artists. Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (18 ...
, who was a student under Ingres at the Academy, merely noted that "he was not a professional, even less a virtuoso". Along with the student musicians, he performed Beethoven string quartets with Niccolò Paganini. In an 1839 letter, Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
described his playing as "charming", and planned to play through all the Mozart and Beethoven violin sonatas with Ingres. Liszt also dedicated his transcriptions of the Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven), 5th and Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven), 6th Beethoven Symphonies (Liszt), symphonies of Beethoven to Ingres on their original publication in 1840.
The American avant-garde artist Man Ray used this expression as the title of a famous photograph portraying Alice Prin (aka Kiki de Montparnasse) in the pose of the ''Valpinçon Bather''.
Gallery
File:Ingres Academic study of a male torso.jpg, ''Academic Study of a Male Torso'', 1801, National Museum, Warsaw, National Museum in Warsaw
File:Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres - Autoportrait à vingt-quatre ans - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Self-Portrait'', 1804, revised c. 1850, Musée Condé, Chantilly, Oise, Chantilly
File:Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres - Portrait de Madame Duvaucey - Google Art Project.jpg, '' Madame Duvaucey'', 1807, Musée Condé, Chantilly
File:Ingres Mademoiselle Jeanne Suzanne Catherine Gonin.jpg, ''Mademoiselle Jeanne-Suzanne-Catherine Gonin'', 1821, Taft Museum of Art
File:Ingres Princess Albert de Broglie.jpg, ''The Princesse de Broglie'', née Joséphine-Eléonore-Marie-Pauline de Galard de Brassac de Béarn, 1853, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
File:Ingres coronation charles vii.jpg, ''Joan of Arc at the Coronation of Charles VII'', 1854, Louvre
File:Dominique Ingres - Mme Moitessier.jpg, ''Madame Moitessier, Mme. Moitessier'', 1856, National Gallery
File:Jean auguste dominique ingres - angélica acorrentada 01.jpg, ''Angelica'', 1859, São Paulo Museum of Art
See also
* Napoleon legacy and memory
Notes
References
* Arikha, Avigdor (1986). ''J.A.D. Ingres: Fifty Life Drawings from the Musée Ingres at Montauban''. Houston: The Museum of Fine Arts.
* Barousse, Pierre, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and Michael Kauffmann (1979). ''Ingres, Drawings from the Musée Ingres at Montauban and Other Collections: Arts Council of Great Britain; [Victoria and Albert Museum shown first]''. [London]: Arts Council of Great Britain.
* Betzer, Sarah E., & Ingres, J.-A.-D. (2012). ''Ingres and the Studio: Women, Painting, History''. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press.
* Canaday, John (1969). ''The Lives of the Painters: Volume 3''. New York: W.W. Norton and Company Inc.
* Clark, Kenneth (1976). ''The Romantic Rebellion: Romantic versus Classic Art''. London [u.a.]: Murray [u.a.].
* Clay, Jean (1981). ''Romanticism''. New York: Vendome.
* Cohn, Marjorie B.; Siegfried, Susan L. (1980). ''Works by J.-A.-D. Ingres in the Collection of the Fogg Art Museum''. Cambridge, Mass.: Fogg Art Museum, Harvard Univ.
* Condon, Patricia. "Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique." ''Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online''. Oxford University Press. Web.
* Condon, Patricia; Cohn, Marjorie B.; Mongan, Agnes (1983). ''In Pursuit of Perfection: The Art of J.-A.-D. Ingres''. Louisville: The J. B. Speed Art Museum.
* Delaborde, Henri (1870). ''Ingres, sa vie, ses travaux, sa doctrine: D'apres les notes manuscrites et les lettres du maitre''. Paris: H. Plon
*
*
* Gowing, Lawrence (1987). ''Paintings in the Louvre''. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang.
* Grimme, Karin H. (2006). ''Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1780–1867''. Hong Kong: Taschen.
* Guégan, Stéphane; Pomaréde, Vincent; Prat, Louis-Antoine (2002). ''Théodore Chassériau, 1819–1856: The Unknown Romantic''. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
*
* Mongan, Agnes; Naef, Dr. Hans (1967). ''Ingres Centennial Exhibition 1867–1967: Drawings, Watercolors, and Oil Sketches from American Collections''. Greenwich, Conn.: Distributed by New York Graphic Society.
* Parker, Robert Allerton (March 1926). "Ingres: The Apostle of Draughtsmanship". ''International Studio'' 83 (346): 24–32.
* Porterfield, Todd, and Susan Siegfried. ''Staging Empire: Napoleon, Ingres, and David'' (Penn State Press, 2006).
* Prat, Louis-Antoine (2004). ''Ingres''. Milan: 5 Continents.
* Radius, Emilio (1968). ''L'opera completa di Ingres''. Milan: Rizzoli.
* Aileen Ribeiro, Ribeiro, Aileen (1999). ''Ingres in Fashion: Representations of Dress and Appearance in Ingres's Images of Women''. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
* Rosenblum, Robert (1985). ''Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres''. London: Thames and Hudson.
* Schneider, Pierre (June 1969). "Through the Louvre with Barnett Newman". ''ARTnews''. pp. 34–72.
* Schwartz, Sanford (13 July 2006). "Ingres vs. Ingres". ''The New York Review of Books'' 53 (12): 4–6.
* Siegfried, S. L., & Rifkin, A. (2001). ''Fingering Ingres''. Oxford: Blackwell.
* Tinterow, Gary; Conisbee, Philip; Naef, Hans (1999). ''Portraits by Ingres: Image of an Epoch''. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
* Turner, J. (2000). ''From Monet to Cézanne: Late 19th-century French Artists''. Grove Art. New York: St Martin's Press.
* Vigne, Georges (1995). ''Ingres''. Translated by John Goodman. New York: Abbeville Press.
External links
* (see index)
Biography, Style and Artworks
Biography and Selected Works of Dominique Ingres
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.org
– 200 paintings
Gallery of Ingres Paintings
''A Closer Look at the portrait of Louis-François Bertin by Ingres'' (Louvre Museum)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique
1780 births
1867 deaths
18th-century French painters
19th-century French painters
19th-century painters of historical subjects
Academic art
École des Beaux-Arts alumni
Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery
French male painters
French neoclassical painters
Members of the Académie des beaux-arts
Orientalist painters
Paintings by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres,
People from Montauban
Prix de Rome for painting
Pupils of Jacques-Louis David
Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)
18th-century French male artists