#Antoine Gros

[josefavomjaaga]

Hortense about "Les Pestiférés de Jaffa"

This is an add-on to this post, in particular to the wonderful answer by @orsuliya about Gros being angry at Bessières and depicting him in this embarrassing way as a way of revenge. I wanted to reblog at first but this translation did get kind of long, so I thought I'd better put it in its own post. Here is what Hortense has to say in her memoirs about that very same painting, and in particular about her brother’s reaction to it. - However, I believe Hortense places this scene somewhat earlier, during the Consulate, even early in the Consulate, a rather short time after the battle of Marengo and after Gros had returned from Italy to Paris (which happened somewhen in 1801?).

As I had often heard [Napoleon] and those who had accompanied him talk about his visit to the plague-stricken people of Jaffa, I thought there would be a fine picture to paint on this subject. Gros, who had just arrived from Italy, was in the Tuileries one morning. I told him about my idea. He approved it and painted a picture that has remained one of his masterpieces. It was exhibited at the Salon.

At which point editor Hanoteau adds a footnote about the painting:

Gros, who had just completed a mission to Italy to select the works of art granted to us by the peace treaty, exhibited the Pestiférés de Jaffa at the Salon of 1804. This painting is now in the Louvre. The sketch is in the Château de Chantilly.

(I wish Hanoteau had also talked about the probability of Hortense - of all people - having given the idea to this painting. In my opinion, it's much more likely that the painting was officially commissioned, and that Hortense is only drawing all attention to herself, as usual.)

But here comes Eugène:

My brother arrived one morning, highly irritated with the painter who had depicted the general's aides-de-camp following him and holding their handkerchiefs to their mouths. "No one better than I," he told me, "can know how this visit went, since I was there, along with the general's other aides-de-camp. We were certainly not at our ease, but would we have had so little control over ourselves as to show any fear when the general, in order to reassure the army, showed such courage and exposed himself so much?" I had great difficulty in persuading my brother that painting was necessarily an imperfect language, that it could only express an idea in a certain way, and that, in order to convey the courageous action of the main character, it had been necessary to indicate a different feeling in the others and, consequently, to sacrifice them. All the First Consul's aides-de-camp shared my brother's indignation against the painter and I had great difficulty in bringing them back to the necessities of art.

Eugène: We didn't do that!

Hortense: [improvises a 15-minute speech about the goals and limitations of art and the artist's obligation to sometimes tell a small lie in order to convey a greater truth]

Eugène: Yeah, but we still didn't do it!

If Eugène really was that angry, my first thought would have been that the guy behind Napoleon was him - but that guy clearly does not look anything like him at all. But interestingly, Hortense claims that Napoleon's aides in Egypt (of which Bessières was not one) felt that they were shown in this offensive way.

So, if the person Gros had depicted really was supposed to be Bessières - did they not recognize him either without his powdered hair? Just like us? 😋

[100-art]

Napoleon Bonaparte through Gros's Eyes - A Riveting Portrait Gallery by Antoine-Jean Gros

100+ Very High Resolution Art Pics

[microcosme11]

Portraits of Antoine-Jean Gros (details) by Jules Boilly, son of Léopold-Louis Boilly.

[ilions-end]

everyone shhh for a second and look at this ink doodle of diomedes and glaucus hugging by 18th century painter antoine-jean gros

[pmamtraveller]

SAPPHO AT LEUCATE /1801/ by ANTOINE-JEAN GROS

Sappho was an ancient Greek lyric poetess from the island of Lesbos, very famous for her personal poetry of love and desire. This painting is centred on the myth where she is intent on leaping from a cliff into the sea at Leucate. This is because she had great love for the boatman Phaon, who didn't feel the same.

Gros's portrayal has Sappho illuminated by the moonlight, with her eyes closed, and arms tightly hugging the lyre against her body, it is almost as if she has just taken a deep inhale of air right before the jump. In the background, there seems to be a lit fire, which could be a sacrificial altar with its meaning rooted in the fact that the decision is final.

This painting was very well received after its creation, and Gros was really making a name for himself in the art world. All this is because he also created historic and Napoleonic artworks in the 1790s. Despite the success of this painting had Gros just couldn't replicate this achievement in his later works.

"Sappho at Leucate" marked a peak at the artist's career, but with it came constant depression and the anxiety of searching for a new masterpiece. Gros was eyeing a position of master of French school that was vacant due to the banishment of his teacher Jacques-Louis David. Unfortunately, he never got it.

[illustratus]

The Death of Sappho by Antoine-Jean Gros

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Antoine-Jean Gros (French, 1771–1835) Bacchus and Ariadne, 1820

[miffy-junot]

'General Lasalle, as painted by Gros, is also seen at a specific moment: he holds in his gloved hands the deed of surrender of the city of Stettin, obtained following brilliant feats of arms by the French. His air of melancholy, however, tinges the description of the event - conjured up in the background of the painting by the procession carrying the keys to the city - with a particular intellectual dimension: the general is the incarnation of history beyond life's vicissitudes.'

source: Citizens and Kings, portraits in the age of revolution 1760-1830

[the-art-asylum]

Bonaparte Visits the Plague Victims of Jaffa (c. 1804)

Antoine-Jean Gros (b. 1771 – d. 1835)

[empirearchives]

Napoleon as Apollo Belvedere, god of plagues, by Antoine-Jean Gros

Napoleon (left), Apollo Belvedere (right)

[royalty-nobility]

Equestrian Portrait of Catherine of Württemberg, Wife of Jerome Bonaparte, Queen of Westphalia

Artist: Antoine-Jean Gros (French, 1771–1835)

Date: 1808

Medium: Oil on Canvas

DESCRIPTION

Princess Katharina of Württemberg (full name: Friederike Katharina Sophie Dorothea; 21 February 1783 – 29 November 1835) was Queen of Westphalia by marriage to Jérôme Bonaparte, who reigned as King of Westphalia between 1807 and 1813.

[bishopsbox]

source: bishopsbox

Bonaparte as first consul (1802), by Antoine-Jean Gros. Musée de la Légion d’honneur, Paris.

Bonaparte como primer cónsul (1802), por Antoine-Jean Gros. Musée de la Légion d’honneur, París.

[tragediambulante]

Christine Boyer , Antoine-Jean Gros, about 1800

[history-of-fashion]

1799 Attr. to Antoine Gros - Étienne-Henri Méhul

(Carnavalet Museum)

[illustratus]

Bonaparte at the Pont d’Arcole | Bonaparte au Pont d’Arcole

by Antoine-Jean Gros

[art-portraits]

Portrait of Henriette Scherrer, Comtesse Legrand

Artist: Antoine Jean Gros (French, 1771-1835)

Date: 1814

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Description

Full Length Portrait Of Henriette Scherrer, Countess Legrand 1795-1848.