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ART “4” “2”-DAY  25 November
ME
OTHERS
abspic
4~2day
DEATH: 1957 RIVERA
BIRTHS: 1870 DENIS — 1863 GAMBLE — 1865 LEMMEN — 1763 DROUAIS
^ Born on 25 November 1870: Maurice Denis, French Nabi religious painter and theoretician of modern art, who died on 13 November 1943.
— Denis was born in Granville and belonged to the Nabis (“prophets”), painters opposed to impressionism who were influenced by Odilon Redon and Paul Gauguin, and were interested in symbolism and the distortion of shapes and colors to produce a decorative surface rather than a naturalistic representation. Denis, influenced by Georges Seurat, also experimented with pointillism. In addition to religious murals, he designed tapestries and stained glass windows. Denis gave a new impetus to religious art in France, and in his critical essays he formulated many of the principles of cubism and fauvism. As the spokesman for symbolism and for the Nabis, Denis proposed his famous definition of painting: “Remember that a picture, before being a battle horse, a nude, an anecdote or whatnot, is essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order”. He wrote Théories (1912) and Histoire de l'art religieux (1939).
— The students of Denis included Roger de la Fresnaye, Eugene Berman, and Tamara de Lempicka.
1903 Portrait of Maurice Denis (23x21cm lithograph; 2/3 size) by Odilon Redon [22 Apr 1840 – 06 Jul 1916]
LINKS
Orphée et Euridice (1910, 115x165cm; 873x1280pix, 729kb _ ZOOM to 1364x2000pix; 2095kb) _ In Greek mythology, Orpheus is portrayed as a poet and musician from Thrace whose lyre playing could charm all who heard his seductive music. In this representation, Eurydice, the wood nymph who became Orpheus's wife, kneels transfixed by his song. Like many Symbolist artists, Denis explored the power of music as a theme in his art, hoping to make the visual arts as lyrical and suggestive as sound itself.
Offering on Mount Calvary (1890; 1050x751pix, 120kb _ ZOOM to 2099x1501pix; 792kb)
Christ Vert (1890; 799x546pix, 57kb _ ZOOM to 2021x1434pix; 1056kb)
Hommage à Cézanne (1900; 815x1107pix, 112kb _ ZOOM to 1629x2213pix; 984kb) — The painting within a painting at the center is Nature Morte avec Compotier (1880; 929x1112pix; 289kb) by Cézanne [19 Jan 1839 – 22 Oct 1906].
La Famille Mellerio (1897; 796x734pix, 80kb _ ZOOM to 2329x2146pix, 1098kb) _ André Mellerio was an influential art critic and writer, great proponent of color lithography, co-founder in 1897 of the magazine L'Estampe et l'Affiche, author of Le Mouvement idéaliste en peinture (1895), La lithographie originale en couleurs; couverture et estampes de Pierre Bonnard (1898), L'Oeuvre graphique complète d'Odilon Redon (1913).
Petit Air, Sonnet (1875, 38x28cm)
Wallpaper Design in two colors: green and rose (1893, 92x50cm; 3/8 size)
Mother and Child (1895)
The Muses in the Sacred Wood (1893) — Mary Visits Elizabeth (1894)
Noli Me Tangere (1896) — Nazareth (1905)
^ Born on 25 November 1863: John Marshall Gamble, US painter who died in 1957. [Were prospective buyers hesitant to take a Gamble? Did they think that, at least, a Gamble is better than a Lemmen?]
— John Gamble was California's premier painter of wildflowers. His interest in wildflowers was not in the flowers themselves but rather in the colorful patterns they made upon the gentle rolling hills. The color of the orange-yellow poppies was so bold that some critics affectionately referred to his paintings as "Gamble's Prairie Fires."
      Born in New Jersey, Gamble grew up in New Zealand and came to study art in San Francisco in 1883. In 1890, he embarked for Paris to study at the Academie Julian and the Academie Colarossi, and in 1893, came back to San Francisco to open his studio as a professional artist.
      He quickly developed a reputation as a painter of wildflowers by following a yearly routine of travelling up and down California to portray the springtime spectacle. The long list of flowers that appear in his paintings include the California poppy, blue and yellow lupines, sage, wild lilacs, wild buckwheat, desert verbena, blue and white everlasting and owl's clover.
      The San Francisco earthquake of 18 April 1906, nearly ruined Gamble. His studio and its entire contents were destroyed in the ensuing fire. Soon thereafter, Gamble left San Francisco to live in Los Angeles, at the urging of his close friend Elmer Wachtel. On his way to Los Angeles he passed through Santa Barbara and immediately fell in love with the small coastal community. He altered his plans and took up residence in Santa Barbara where he lived and painted for the rest of his life.
Poppies and Lupines (Santa Barbara) (46x61cm)
^ Born on 25 (26?) November 1865: Georges Lemmen, Belgian Art Nouveau painter, engraver, draftsman and designer, who died on 15 (05?) July 1916. — [Did art dealers find it difficult to sell his paintings, because potential buyers misunderstood them to say: “This is a lemon.”?]
— Lemmen showed a precocious talent, first exhibiting in 1875. His only formal study was at a local school of drawing. Between 1884 and 1886 he showed at the Essor group in Brussels paintings that were based on Dürer and Holbein and closely related to those of Lemmen’s contemporary, Khnopff. When Lemmen became a member of Les XX in 1888 his style developed quickly, influenced principally by French Neo-Impressionism and the English Arts and Crafts Movement. Lemmen adopted the pointillist technique following Seurat’s first showing with Les XX in 1887. His best pointillist canvases include The Carousel (1891) as well as portraits of Julie (1891) and Mme Lemmen (1895)
— Lemmen was born in Schaerbeek. For a short period he studied at the school of drawing in St. Josse-ten-Noode. In the early 1880s he became influenced by Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. In 1888 he joined the avant-garde group Les Vingt in Brussels. In 1890-1893, under the influence of Théo van Rysselberghe, he moved towards Neo-Impressionism and painted numerous landscapes and portraits using the technique. He exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris and participated in Les Vingt exhibitions in Brussels. The death of Seurat in 1891 had a great impact on all the painters of the Neo-Impressionist group. By 1895 Lemmen freed himself from Pointillism and painted in a more traditional, Impressionist style, though his colors were closer to those of the Nabis-painters. During his travel to England Lemmen became interested in artifacts. His one-man show in 1913 in Brussels had a great success. In July 1915 he moved to Ukkel, where he died in July 1916. His wide-ranging work includes numerous book illustrations, posters, ceramics, carpets, drawings, pastels and gouaches.
— C'est à l'âge de neuf ans et demi, que Georges Lemmen expose pour la première fois, à Termonde, à l'exposition des Beaux-Arts. De douze à dix-huit ans, il prend part régulièrement aux différents salons triennaux de Gand, Bruxelles ou Anvers. A treize ans, il entre à l'Académie des Beaux-Arts de Saint-Josse-ten-Noode réputée pour son enseignement moins conventionnel. En 1883-1884, alors qu'il suit encore ses cours, il subit très nettement l'influence de Khnopff, des écrivains symbolistes et des pré-raffaelites anglais. Dans ses peintures, les personnages sont plongés dans une atmosphère intimiste et recueillie. Ils ont le regard absent et les gestes posés, qui les rendent immatériels et les projettent hors du temps.
      En 1885, sa palette s'éclaircit, et trois ans plus tard, ses sujets se modernisent. On retrouve dans les œuvres de cette époque l'admiration qu'il porte à Degas et Toulouse-Lautrec. Il peint avec d'une touche devenue très expressive et un naturalisme quelquefois trivial, des scènes de femmes à leur toilette ou de café-concert,. Seurat avait exposé Dimanche Après-midi à la grande Jatte en 1887 au très avant-gardiste Cercle des XX dont Lemmen était membre. Cette œuvre étonnante aux yeux de ceux qui la virent à cette occasion fit quelques émules au sein du cercle. Finch y exposa ses premières œuvres pointillistes un an plus tard, Van Rysselberghe fit de même un peu plus tard. Et en 1890, c'est au tour de Lemmen (et d'autres encore), de se convertir aux pratiques néo-impressionnistes. Les sujets de prédilection de Lemmen sont encore les portraits, représentés dans un intérieur dépouillé afin que l'attention soit concentrée uniquement sur l'invisible, sur l'âme du modèle. Il réalise également des scènes d'extérieur, des marines, des vues de la Meuse ou de la campagne. La vie moderne et populaire fait aussi partie de son répertoire. Il y peindra des foires et carrousels.
      Attiré par les Arts Décoratifs, il commence des réalisations vers 1890, créant des motifs pour broderies, carreaux céramiques ou tapis. A cette époque, ses compositions sont élaborées et encore figuratives. En 1895, cette figuration va faire place, à des arabesques et à une ornementation très décorative où la ligne en "coup de fouet ", typique de l'Art Nouveau prendra le pas pour définir une calligraphie nouvelle et personnelle.
      Au tournant du siècle, l'artiste se remet en question. Il se lasse de cette discipline et des pensées sociales qui l'accompagnent. Ses convictions, au fond, n'ont jamais été très fortes. Il se remet à la peinture plus intensément alors qu'il avait déjà abandonné, cinq ans plus tôt, la technique du point. Son expérience dans les Arts Décoratifs, et ses influences précédentes le rapproche des Nabis. Il pose la matière picturale devenue plus dense, en petites touches. Les tons qu'il utilise sont plus sourds tandis que les différents plans sont écrasés. En 1906, il commence à peindre des baigneuses et sa manière de traiter le sujet évolue: ses scènes silencieuses et intimistes, ses personnages profondément inspirés et presque irréels gagnent en force et en présence. Jusqu'à la fin de sa vie, et malgré la reconnaissance que les autres portent à son œuvre, Lemmen sera toujours mécontent de son travail, et surtout de ses envois. Il a presque honte d'exposer des scènes qui lui semblent si peu inspirées. Il regrettera également de n'avoir pu offrir une vie plus confortable à sa femme et ses enfants.
LINKS
Self-Portrait (1890, 43x38cm)
Avec le plus vif de plaisir, chère Madame! (1909, 14x9cm)
65 Avenue de Longchamp...Et bon train! (1906, 9x14cm)
Demain Lundi entre 7 et 8 h (1907, 9x14cm)
The Beach at Heist (1892, 38x46cm; 217kb) [NOT Heist at the Beach. But did he consider painting Heist at the Bank ? If so, nothing came of it, perhaps because he could not get robbers to stand still long enough to paint them. OK, seriously now: Heist is a seaside town in Belgium (“le Dauville belge”) at 51º20' N, 3º14' E, between Blankenberge and Knokke.— Knokke-Heist webcam]
Mme. Lemmen (1893, 60x51cm; 201kb)
Les soeurs Serruys (1894, 68x80cm; 985x1140pix, 444kb) _ Several progressive Belgian and Dutch painters, such as Georges Lemmen, eagerly adopted the Neo-Impressionist theories and practices developed by Seurat in Paris. The compelling presence of this double portrait is as much due to Lemmen's bold use of color as to the psychological overtones often found in his images. The composition is dominated by the red dresses and the blue backdrop, while dots of green and orange are distributed across both color zones. Lemmen's use of these few colors illustrates the law of simultaneous contrast, which holds that applying complementary hues—or opposites on the color wheel—in adjacent areas intensifies their differences and stimulates a brilliant effect. His dotted frame is also based on juxtaposing complementary colors, and it is one of the few surviving examples of original Neo-Impressionist frames. The patterned tablecloth and twisting tendrils of money plant reflect Lemmen's interest in the decorative forms of Art Nouveau.
Le petit Pierre (1904; 1037x830pix, 259kb)
Le petit Pierre avec tournesols (1904; 1147x1139pix, 259kb)
Woman and Child (1907; 1159x969pix, kb)
Three Little Girls (1907; 887x1129pix)
42 images at Webshots
^ Died on 25 November 1957: Diego María Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, Mexican Social Realist muralist born on 08 December 1886. Rivera's third wife was the painter Frida Kahlo.
— Diego Rivera produced murals on social themes. He was born in Guanajuato and educated in Mexico City. He studied painting in Europe between 1907 and 1921. Rivera returned to Mexico in 1921 and became prominent in the country's revival of mural painting. Believing art should serve working people and be readily available to them, he concentrated on creating large frescoes portraying the history and social problems of Mexico. He painted them on the walls of public buildings, including the National Palace in Mexico City (1929) and the Palace of Cortes in Cuernavaca (1930). Greatly influenced by indigenous Mexican art, Rivera's murals are simple and bold and, as social comment, have aroused much controversy among political and religious groups in both the United States and Mexico.
— Diego Rivera was one of the greatest artists in the XXth century. Born in Guanajuato Mexico, in 1892 he moved to Mexico City with his family. He studied in the San Carlos Academy and in the carving workshop of artist José Guadalupe Posada, whose influence was decisive. Later in Paris, he received the influence of post-modernism and cubism, the mediums in which he expressed himself with ease. Diego Rivera with the use of classicist, simplified and colorful painting recovered the pre-columbian past catching the most significant moments in mexican history: the earth, the farmer, the laborer, the custumes and popular characters. Diego Rivera 's legacy to modern mexican art was decisive in murals and canvas; he was a revolutionary painter looking to take art to the big public, to streets and buildings, managing a precise, direct, and realist style, full of social content.
LINKS
Self-portrait (574x423pix, 77kb)
Self-portrait (1930 lithograph, 40x28cm; 2/3 size, 234kb)
Two Women and a Child (1926, 74x80cm; recommended 3/10 size_ ZOOM to 3/5 size) _ Only one hand and the hair of the baby is seen, as it is held by a woman seen from the back. Both women are sitting on the ground.
ZapataAgrarian Leader Zapata (1932) _ The legend of the Mexican Revolution, Emiliano Zapata [1873-1919], was a theme of several representations by masterful Diego Rivera during his pictorial trajectory. The first time he painted Zapata, was on his cubist work Paisaje zapatista (1915), then he appears on the murals of the Universidad Autónoma de Chapingo (1926-1927); after that he is seen as the great revolutionary figure of Mexico on the murals he realized inside the Secretaría de Educación Pública in 1928. It can´t be forgotten the way in which the celebrated phrase "Tierra y libertad" was painted by the "sapo-rana" artist, as he called himself, on the murals of Palacio Nacional (1929, 1930 and 1935).
     In this image [>], we see a Zapata painted in 1930-1931, that guides his agrarian revolutionaries; this panel is part of the removable mural that Rivera realized for his individual exhibit in the Modern Art Museum of New York. Zapata appears with his white vestment in front of his revolutionaries; at his feet lies a fallen enemy, that no doubt is a property-owner. Emiliano Zapata with his left hand dominates a steed, that reminds us much to the horses of the Renaissance artist Paolo Uccello [1397 – 10 Dec 1475]. We just need to remember that Riviera on his trip to Italy from 1920 to 1921, produced several sketches about the horses that are part of Uccello´s masterpiece The Battle of San Romano. By this work, Rivera also swears allegiance to the lands of South Mexico, that was the battlefield of the agrarian revolutionary, as he presents a splendid vegetation, a humid land and in the piece can be felt that freshness of the thickness when printing greenish tones of incomparable richness. Diego Rivera is one of the Mexican Art's pillars, without him, its history would have been different.
Zapata (1932 lithograph, 41x33cm; 3/5 size, 202kb) _ this is the black-and-white lithograph made after the painting shown above.
Sugar CaneFlower Carrier (1935) — Calla Lilies
Flower Vender (1949) — Seated Woman
La Casteñeda (1904) — Los Viejos (1912)
Sueño de una Tarde de Domingo en el Parque de la Alameda (1948; 478x1790pix, 116kb) _ detail in center (642x831pix, 159kb) _ detail on the right (519x460pix, 70kb)
Noche de los Ricos (1928; 1035x495pix, 140kb) _ the banner at the top read “todos los pesos duros”.
Open Air School (1932 lithograph; 786x1020pix, 245kb) _ The nine peasant students sitting on the ground around the teacher seem to range from about 8 to 90 years old. They are observed by a gun-toting guard mounted on a horse, while farm laborers with three teams of mules plough in the background.
Fruits of Labor (1932 lithograph; 1120x792pix, 271kb) _ A woman passes out an apple each to the six children surrounding her, while a man at her side hold a book open toward the viewer.
^ Born on 25 November 1763: Jean-Germain Drouais, French Neoclassical painter who died on 13 February 1788.
— He was trained first by his father François-Hubert Drouais [14 Dec 1727 – 21 Oct 1775] and in 1778 enrolled at the Académie Royale, becoming a student of Nicolas-Guy Brenet. He also studied under Jean-Baptiste Oudry. Around 1781 he entered Jacques-Louis David’s studio as one of his first students, of which he became the most promising Neo-classical history painter. The following year, though not officially entered for the competition, he painted that year’s Prix de Rome subject, The Return of the Prodigal Son, presumably as a trial for his own edification. The picture has a friezelike composition and reveals both the influence of Jean-François Peyron and David as well as debts to Poussin and Italian 17th-century sources. In 1783 Drouais reached the Prix de Rome final with The Resurrection of the Son of the Widow of Naïn but was eliminated from the competition in extraordinary circumstances: impatient to know his master’s opinion, Drouais cut a section off the canvas and smuggled it out of the competition rooms. David acknowledged it to be the best painting his favorite student had yet done, but by his hasty action Drouais had disqualified himself. However, the following year he won the prize, and great acclaim, with The Woman of Canaan at the Feet of Christ, an extremely accomplished piece influenced by Poussin’s work and David’s Belisarius.
LINKS
Le Comte and Chevalier de Choiseul as Savoyards (1758)
Marius at Minturnae (1786) — Madame Drouais
Jesus Driving the Merchants out of the Temple. (38cmx46cm) _ This study, painted between 1784 and 1788, was formerly attributed to the 18th-century French School. Purchased by the city of Rennes from the Fischer-Kiener Gallery in 1986. The painting's sources are from: - The Gospel according to St. Matthew (Ch. 21): "And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves ." - The Gospel according to St. Mark (Ch.11): "and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves; And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple. And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves." - The Gospel according to St. Luke (Ch.19):"And he went into the temple and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought; Saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves." - The Gospel according to St. John (Ch.2): "And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting; And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise."
The same scene, by other artists:
_ Christ Chasing the Moneylenders from the Temple by Castiglione
_ Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple (1575) by El Greco
_ Christ Drives Money-Changers from the Temple (1626) by Rembrandt
_ Christ Driving Merchants from the Temple (1556) by Hernessen
_ Christ Driving the Merchants from the Temple (1650) by Jordaens
_ No. 27 Scenes from the Life of Christ: 11. Expulsion of the Money-changers from the Temple (1306) by Bondone
_ Christ driving the Traders from the Temple by Cavallino
_ Christ Driving the Traders from the Temple (1832) by Turner
_ Christ Expelling the Moneychangers from the Temple (engraving, 1547) by Bernardi
_ The Expulsion of the Moneychangers from the Temple (1675) by Giordano

Died on a 25 November:


^ 1967 Ossip Zadkine, Jewish Belorussian-born, English-raised French sculptor, draftsman, and printmaker, born on 14 July 1890. He spent his childhood in Smolensk in a circle of cultured and assimilated Jews. His father was a convert to the Orthodox Church, and his mother came from an immigrant family of Scottish shipwrights. While staying with his mother’s relatives in Sunderland, northern England, in 1905, he attended the local art school and taught himself to carve furniture ornaments. At the age of 16 he continued his artistic training in London, taking evening classes in life drawing and making his living as an ornamental woodcarver. During this time he became friendly with the painter David Bomberg. He continued his studies at the Regent Street Polytechnic, London, and later, in 1908, at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London, where he concentrated on techniques in wood. — Itzhak Olitski and Jules Olitski were assistants of Zadkine. — Zadkine's students included Emil Cimiotti, Marta Colvin, Noemí Gerstein, Wladyslaw Hasior, Gerdur Helgadóttir, Kenneth Kemble, Gabriel Kohn, Kenneth Noland, Betty Bierne Parsons, Alicia Penalba, Krishna Reddy, Yerasimos Sklavos, Richard Stankiewicz, George Sugarman, Shinkichi Tajiri.

1924 Jules Worms, French artist born on 16 December 1832. — [not related to the diet of Worms]

^ 1867 Carl Ferdinand Sohn, German painter born on 10 December 1805. — [he was the Sohn of his Mutter and his Vater] — He studied at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, and the Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf, at both under Wilhelm von Schadow. He then went (1830–1831) to Italy where he adopted the works of the Venetians Titian, Veronese, and Palma Vecchio as his lasting models. These studies preceded his assumption, in 1832, of lifelong teaching duties at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf. With Rinaldo and Armida (1828), a scene showing the lovers from the verse epic Gerusalemme liberata of Torquato Tasso [11 Mar 1544 – 25 Apr 1595], Sohn impressed his contemporaries in Düsseldorf by introducing the idealistic and literary style established by Schadow and his followers. The brilliantly coloristic and realistically rendered work reveals Sohn’s talent for depicting dynamic life-sized figures, animated sensuality, and cogent gestures. — The students of Sohn included Wilhelm Busch, John W. Ehninger, Ludwig Knaus, Louis Kolitz, Wilhelm Trautschold, Benjamin Vautier, Richard Caton Woodville. — Tasso in the Insane Asylum (1839; 604x496pix, 66kb) by Delacroix.

1858 Johannes Reekers, Dutch artist born in 1790.

1733 Pierre Antoine Quillard (or Quilliard), French painter, draughtsman and engraver, active in Portugal, where he dies. He was born in 1701. He received, reportedly from the age of 11, an annual pension from the Abbé de Fleury, tutor to Louis XV. He may already have started work by this time in the Paris studio of Watteau, copying his master’s drawings and perhaps also painting portions of his canvases. Given Watteau’s temperamental instability, it seems unlikely that he stayed there long. Quillard produced a fair number of fêtes galantes in the style of Watteau, ranging from the lyricism of such paintings as The Four Seasons to an unusual pre-Romantic style with surging figures and dramatically twisted trees, as in Dance among the Ruins. His later works suggest the influence of François Lemoyne and Nicolas Lancret.


Born on a 25 November:


1881 August Willem van Voorden, Dutch artist who died in 1921.

1782 (or 24 Nov) Alexandre Louise Marie Richard, French artist who died on 10 or 11 December 1859.

^ 1768 Charles Meynier, Parisian painter and collector who died on 06 September 1832. His father intended that he should become a tailor, but he showed an early love for drawing and was allowed to study with the engraver Pierre-Philippe Choffard. He was a proficient student but nevertheless wished to become a painter, so his elder brother Meynier St-Phal, an actor at the Comédie-Française in Paris, paid for him to train from 1785 with François-André Vincent, who then enjoyed a considerable reputation. In 1789 he won the Prix de Rome for Joseph Recognized by his Brothers (1789), jointly with Anne-Louis Girodet. The events of the French Revolution prevented him spending the usual five years in Rome, but his time there (till 1793) allowed him to make numerous studies of antique sculpture. He returned to Paris during the Reign of Terror and started to produce large Neo-classical works. In 1793 he entered a competition set by the Committee of Public Safety for the best work on a theme from the French Revolution. Taking the competition itself as his subject, he painted France Encouraging Science and the Arts, a classically inspired work in which the generalized features of the figures, with prominent noses and chins, are characteristic of his style. The painting won a prize, though not the first prize, which was won by François Gérard, and thereafter Meynier rapidly established a reputation. He made his début at the Salon in 1795. Under the First Empire he received several public commissions for works celebrating Napoleon’s victories. In 1806 he produced a series of drawings (Paris, Louvre) for bas-reliefs and sculptures to ornament the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, Paris, the monumental entrance to the Tuileries that was built to celebrate Napoleon’s victories of 1805. The arch was designed by Pierre-François Léonard Fontaine and Charles Percier, and Meynier’s designs were sculpted by a team that included Pierre Cartellier, Clodion, Louis-Pierre Deseine, Jacques Philippe Le Sueur (1757–1830) and Claude Ramey. In 1808 he painted Marshal Ney and the Soldiers of the 76th Regiment Retrieving their Flags from the Arsenal of Inspruck [sic], one of 18 works commissioned in 1806 to illustrate Napoleon’s German campaign. Other similarly large-scale works were commissioned from such artists as Antoine-Jean Gros, François Gérard, and Girodet. The work, which depicts the retrieval in 1805 of three flags that had been lost in the campaign of 1800, was highly praised at the Salon of 1808. In 1807 he was one of 26 artists who entered the competition to paint a scene from the recently fought Battle of Eylau. His Napoleon on the Battlefield of Eylau (1807) won one of the two honorable mentions; the competition was won by Gros with Napoléon sur le champ de bataille d'Eylau, 9 Février 1807 (1808; 912x1400pix, 199kb). In the foreground of this bloody battle scene Meynier included numerous nude corpses, in rather slavish accordance with classical ideals (the corpses of Gros wore their uniforms).
Retour de Napoléon dans l'île de Lobau après la bataille d'Essling (1812; 1052x1400pix, 195kb) _ Après s’être avancée jusqu’aux portes de Vienne, la Grande Armée fut bloquée dans l’île Lobau, sur le Danube. Tentant de franchir le fleuve sur des ponts de bois, elle ne parvint pas à percer lors de la bataille d’Essling. Les blessés s’entassèrent dans l’île Lobau. Meynier n’ayant manifestement jamais vu de champ de bataille, ce tableau est prétexte à peindre de belles académies néoclassiques, et si Napoléon, suivi de Berthier, chef d’état-major de la Grande Armée, vient réconforter les blessés, par le serment il fait corps avec eux. Son attitude n’est cependant guère convaincante. La scène se déroule après Essling. On notera la grande science du dessin et de la lumière qui fait toute la qualité de Meynier, l’un des meilleurs peintres néoclassiques, élève de Vincent qui remporta le Prix de Rome en 1789 en même temps que Girodet. L’œuvre est bien supérieure à celles de Gautherot, Napoléon harangue le 2ème corps de la Grande-Armée sur le pont de Lech à Augsbourg 1808 (969x1400pix, 200kb), et Debret, Napoléon harangue les troupes bavaroises et wurtembourgeoises à Abensberg 1810 (1024x1400pix, 241kb), qui se situent avant d'autres batailles, ne serait-ce que par l’habileté de sa composition. Il semble toutefois que l’artiste ait été peu convaincu par son sujet, comme de nombreux peintres du temps, plus portés sur l’Antiquité.
     Baignés de culture classique, les hommes de la Révolution et de l’Empire réactivèrent nombre de notions antiques, comme la République, le Sénat, le Consulat, etc. Le serment par le bras tendu est également une gestuelle reprise du salut romain. Remise à la mode sous la Révolution, l’action devait prendre toute son importance avec l’empire napoléonien, assimilé dans les esprits à l’empire romain et à l’empire carolingien, son héritier.
Sous l’Empire cependant, il ne s’agissait plus de prêter serment à une idée, la Nation, la République, etc., mais bel et bien à un homme, voire à un chef de guerre, car ce n’est jamais le peuple qui s’exprime dans ces tableaux, mais toujours l’armée. Même s’il s’agit du peuple en armes, héritier de l’armée révolutionnaire de même que Napoléon représente la Nation dont il est le premier magistrat sacré, nous avons malgré tout affaire avant tout à des militaires prêtant serment à leur chef suprême. C’est ici que se révèle pleinement le véritable profil de Napoléon.
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