Angle article
preface
Living in the hall of the Denon Hall with David's grand narrative works is the work of his student Ingres.
In 1797, Ingres and more than 60 students learned from David in the studio in the northeast corner of the dark and dirty Louvre, and Ingres's artistic talent was soon appreciated by David and became his assistant.
In 1806, Ingres studied in Rome for five years at public expense, and prior to that, during 1804-1805, Angle was commissioned by Monsieur Rivière to paint three portraits of him, his wife, and their 13-year-old daughter, the first important private order the painter received. Years later, Ingres still considers them second to none in all his portraits. The three paintings are still side-by-side in the halls of the Denon Pavilion.
Monsieur Riviere, Ingres, 1805, in the Louvre
The protagonist of "Monsieur Livier" appears to be laid-back and well-dressed, and at first glance, he has been carefully dressed, and in order to fully display his overall attire, he chooses to push the chair away from the table. Andrew Shelton, the author of Ingres, argues that Riviere is a pretentious upstart, or a fashionably dressed bourgeois upstart.
Unlike Monsieur Riviere, influenced by teacher David, the other two female portraits have Ingres' own personality. In Madame de Riviere, Ingres strives to create an elegant, noble, creamy atmosphere; In Miss Riviere, he tries to show her natural and fresh side. The daughter's natural youth, freshness and elegance are in great contrast with her mother's pearlescent and heavy makeup.
Madame de Rivière, Ingres, 1805, in the Louvre Collection
Miss Riviere, Ingres, 1806, in the Louvre collection
"Miss Riviera" gives people a sense of pure simplicity, natural freshness, Ingres borrowed raphael's style of work, giving a quiet and wide natural landscape behind the girl, such as a towering church spire in the left rear scene, adding a pure and flawless divine beauty to the heroine. Unfortunately, the young lady died a year later.
The Bather of Wappingson, Ingres, 1808, in the Collection of the Louvre
For a long time, there has been a prejudice in the French art world that male nudes are superior to female nudes, and people usually associate women's bodies with erotic sexual desires. Ingres did the opposite, but this is not necessarily the intuition of Ingres's art, but more of an economic consideration, because the art market prefers female nude paintings.
In 1808, Ingres in Rome sent The Bath girl of Wappingson to the Académie française in Paris, and the painting depicted a sitting on a bed with her back to the audience, her feet gracefully intertwined, and a very low pool on the left side of her ankle, hence the name bath girl.
Ingres gave a clever and precise treatment of the body structure of the women in the painting: he extended the back of the bathing woman, making it look more feminine; He flattened the legs of the bath girl, reducing its three-dimensional feeling; He meticulously depicts the bath girl's right arm, giving it a perfect curvature.
The Bathing Girl of Wapinsone is very restrained in its use of color, with the main body of the painting using white, gray, and slightly different skin tones.
The Paris Academic Council at the time had a general evaluation of the work, and was even less impressed with Ingres's historical paintings, so he did not return to Paris after the end of the publicly-funded study tour in 1810, but continued to stay in Rome. In 1807, perhaps because of Ingres' unhappy career, he dissolved his engagement with his fiancée.
The Grand Madame de Magres, 1814, in the Collection of the Louvre
In 1814, Ingres created the Grand Lady of the Palace for the kings and queens of Naples, which had a strong classical color for the painting. Sheldon analyzes:
"First of all, whether it's the bed full of cushions or the women on the bed, they are parallel to the picture. Secondly, the structure of the work is neat and symmetrical, and the upper body of the palace girl on the left side of the painting is slightly raised, forming a curved arc. The curtain on the right side of the painting is covered with folds, and the palace maid gently pulls the curtain tent, and the folds of the curtain also form a curved curve. One left, one right, two curves, symmetrical to each other. In the whole painting, the most emblematic of Ingres's aesthetic taste is the dreamy distorted body structure of the palace girl - she looks boneless and shapeless. ”
The now popular work was criticized at the Paris Salon in 1819.
Roger Rescues Angelica, Ingres, 1819, in the Louvre
At the Paris Salon exhibition that same year, Ingres's Roger Rescues Angelica was also snubbed.
The beautiful maiden Angelica was stripped of her clothes, locked on a rock, and sacrificed to the sea beast. The hero Roger comes to her rescue with his vulture (the mythical monster with the body of an eagle-headed horse).
The figure of Roger is derived from a 15th-century tomb relief and is as fantastical as his mount. Roger is more like an ornament on the Christmas tree than a brave fighter. To make Roger more masculine, Angle gave him a spear, but the spear was absurdly clamped tightly by the teeth of the sea beast. It is this unusual juxtaposition that gives the work a surreal touch.
"When you see the sharp claws of the vulture approaching Angelica's weak body, you may be afraid; When you find that the rock on which Angelica is leaning resembles a huge male reproductive organ (with an uncanny erotic color), you may feel very strange and perhaps a little embarrassed. (Sheldon)
Ingres's work always has a paradoxical character, where "antics and sadism, innocence and pornography, fairytale magic and sitcom-like obscenity are intertwined." ”
As a result, Ingres was accused by critics of the Paris Art Exhibition of "pursuing novelty", and later, the same label was attached to the head of Romanticism.
In order to make ends meet, Ingres painted a number of portraits. In 1820, the unsuccessful Ingres came to Florence and painted a portrait of his old friend and sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini (1777-1850). This portrait is forward-looking, and instead of portraying the protagonist as a flashy and mannerist nobleman according to the routine of the time, he portrays him as a simple and unpretentious modern male ideal figure. Lorenzo Bartorini no longer emphasizes the physical beauty and gorgeous attire of the man, but focuses on his resolute demeanor and confident posture. The protagonist frowns slightly, staring ahead, his sharp eyes and closed lips showing his keen mind and strong spirit.
Lorenzo Bartorini, Ingres, 1820, in the Louvre Collection
The Massacre of Theo Island
In 1824, the long-accumulated romantic forces finally exploded, and Eugene Delacroix's (1798-1863) Massacre of The Island of Theo broke the dominance of neoclassicism. Aesthetic fatigue developed around academic neoclassical works, and the ostracized Ingres finally ushered in his artistic spring. Propelled by Parisian magnates and collectors, he became a member of the Académie française in 1825, at the age of 44.
At this time, Ingres could finally make a big splash in the so-called high-class historical paintings, and in 1827 painted the Homeric Praise, which is now little noticed today. Angle implements the traditional academic art concept of heavy lines and light colors, and the outlines of the figures in the paintings are clear and precise.
Homer's Praise, Ingres, 1827, in the Louvre Collection
Monsieur Bertán, Ingres, 1832, in the Louvre Collection
Today we are more interested in Ingres's 1832 portrait of Monsieur Bertán. The protagonist is the owner of a newspaper, and Ingres places Mr. Bertan in a simple environment. Bertan is like in a vacuum, he is the absolute center of the painting. Behind him is a monotonous brown background, and against this background, its silhouette stands out.
The most attractive thing about Bertan is that his two eyebrows are extremely asymmetrical, one of which is highly arched; He closed his lips tightly, forming a jagged lip line, and the corners of his lips were obviously lowered, which was a very personal feature. His fingers are thick and short, tapered, and his fingertips are slightly thinner. The figure of Bertan is placed at a low point on the canvas and cut below his knees, giving the illusion that his lower limbs stretch out from the frame and extend into the space of the viewer, highlighting his tarzan-weighted body.
Commentators at the time pointed out that Bertan's portrait showed the bourgeois model of his time, and the Impressionist Edouard Manet (1832-1883) commented that he was "the image of the bourgeois Buddha—rich, full, successful" in his opinion.
The Turkish Bather, Ingres, 1862, in the Louvre
In his later years, Ingres completed the most daring form and the most individual style of his entire creative career, "Turkish Bath Girl". The painting was not fully understood at the time, but it influenced an entire generation of artists from Monet to Pablo Picasso (1881-1973).
Ingres was once considered a representative of the French academic school and a conservative. But contemporary critics have repositioned Ingres's value, arguing that he continued to influence the modernist movement of the 20th century, most notably the deliberate distortions of time and physical anomalies that Picasso borrowed from Ingres. As Sheldon put it:
More than 30 years after the master's death, many people had already asserted that Ingres's work was outdated. But to this day, it is surprising that these works can still have such an important impact, and perhaps the most powerful testimony to the significance of Ingres's works. The clamor of the opponents is, after all, a cloud of wishful thinking, because Ingres and his artistic creation still profoundly influence the complex and diverse process of collective self-definition (which is the fundamental function of all artistic creation), and even more so today than ever. ”