The Art of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780 – 1867) found fame as the champion of the classical tradition in France. After training briefly with the famous artist, David, Ingres spent his early career in Italy, where he earned a good deal of his living with exquisite pencil portraits. From the beginning of his career, Ingres freely borrowed from earlier art, using poses from Roman statues and adopting the historical style appropriate to his subject which leads critics to charge him with plundering the past.


(Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique. The Grand Odalisque.
c. 1814. oil on canvas. Louvre, Paris.)
Returning to Paris from Rome in the 1820s, Ingres became embroiled in aesthetic controversy. With his emphasis on draftsmanship and classical values, he was revered as the leading exponent of academic art, in contrast to the wilder approach of the Romantics headed by Delacroix. Ingres took an approach to idealize nude subjects in which the line of the subject took precedence over color and the figure resembles a living statue.


(Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique. Napoleon, I Crowned.
c. 1806. oil on canvas. Musee de Armee, Paris.)
Throughout his career, Ingres sought to create the perfect, classical nude. The Valpincon Bather, named after an early owner, was painted while he was in Rome and is one of Ingres’ most classical works. The subject dons a pose that Ingres used again and again and is sometimes placed in a harem in the works he painted later on.


(Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique. The Bather of Valpincon.
c. 1808. oil on canvas. Louvre, Paris.)
The subject has exotic potential and the sunken pool hints that this is a bathhouse. The mood is cool and remote. The softly curving outlines of the figure contrast with the vertical folds of cloth. Critics often complained that Ingres’ nudes seemed boneless, noting here that the bather appears to have no ankles.


(Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique. Oedipus and the Sphinx.
c. 1808. oil on canvas. Louvre, Paris.)
As part of the Neo-Classical movement, Ingres had a preference for highly finished paintings. He said that paint should be as smooth “like the skin of an onion” which was certainly a classical trait, but some of his exotic subjects bordered on the side of the Romantic movement. His female nudes are both elegant and graceful, his work is much appreciated here!

Enjoy :)

Reference: King, R. Art. New York: DK Publishing, 2008.

The Art of Jens Juel

Jens Juel (1745 – 1802) was a Danish painter primarily famous for his portrait painting. He was born in Balslev on the island of Fyn in Denmark. He showed a great interest in painting at an early age, so his parents arranged for him to study in Hamburg as an apprentice to the painter, Johann Michael Gehrman.

 


(Juel, Jens. Portrait of a Noblewoman with her son.
c. 1799. oil on canvas.)
Soon after improving his skills, Juel traveled extensively around Europe painting portraits. He worked in Dresden, Geneva, Rome, and Paris before he finally settled down in Copenhagen. He then successfully forged an impressive reputation with his astute portraits and his well-mannered still-life paintings. Juel was eventually appointed as the court painter in 1780.


(Juel, Jens. Still Life with Flowers. c. 1764.
oil on canvas. Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany.)
Two hundres and seventy years later, Juel used the relaxed naturalism pose of Leonardo's Mona Lisa, including the intriguing subtlety of the expression. He uses the half-figure pose with the subject’s upper body turned three-quarters of the way toward the artist, Leonardo's composition is made up of a pyramid. Her shoulders form the sides and her head is at the peak, which naturally leads the eye of the viewer up to the eyes of the subject.


(Juel, Jens. Portrait of a Woman.
c. 1773. oil on canvas.)
His work was popular during the Neo-classic movement which began as a reaction against both the surviving Baroque & Rococo art styles. This movement was a desire to return to the perceived “purity” of the art of Rome. Neo-classical paintings are devoid of pastel colors & haziness, instead, they have sharp colors or light-dark colors to contrast each other which creates a very dramatic effect.


(Juel, Jens. Portrait of Jean Armand Tronchin.
c. 1779. oil on canvas.)
In 1784, Juel became a professor at the Copenhagen Academy. He was regarded as a fine teacher and eventually became the director of the Academy in 1795.


(Juel, Jens. Still Life with Flowers. c. 1764.
oil on canvas. Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany.)
Juel is famous for portrait painting but, I love his still life paintings with flowers most of all. The huge bright colored flowers that contrast with the dark background are both methodical as well as elegant and his work is much appreciated here!

Enjoy :)