#Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa

[empirearchives]

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

Napoleon (left), Apollo Belvedere (right)

[the-art-asylum]

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

Antoine-Jean Gros (b. 1771 – d. 1835)

[josefavomjaaga]

There is also Scott's artistic vision and Phoenix's interpretation of Napoleon to contend with as well as its historical accuracy. The movie has never professed to be a biopic (to my knowledge), so there will be significant liberties taken, even with the characters of... the historical characters. Scott's team is using the bare bones of Napoleon's history to create a story they want.

Regarding this, I feel a bit like Eugène in an anecdote from Hortense's memoirs, when he and Napoleon's other aides protested because Antoine-Jean Gros in his painting about Bonaparte visiting the plague victims at Jaffa had shown them holding handkerchiefs to their noses (in order to protect themselves from contagion), which in truth they had not done. Hortense then patiently explains to him that an artist sometimes has to "lie" in order to tell his truth, i.e., to take this kind of liberties in order to emphasize the point he wants to make. Reaction: "Yes, but we still didn't do it!"

Maybe I'm just disappointed because, judging from what has been made available so far, the story Scott tells seems to have not much that might interest me personally. Neither Napoleon the self-made-man nor Napoleon the lover are high up on my list 😋. So far, I feel like the one thing I might be interested in is how the movie handles the years after the "divorce", how they bring Marie Louise into a story that seems to be all about a Napoleon-Josephine dynamic.

Something I was wondering about the Ridley Scott movie trailers, but also with regards to the Napoleonicwars forum: Is there something like a specifically "British Napoleon"? Like, a historical tradition that differs wildly from the "European Napoleon"?

What irritates me most about those trailers we have seen is not so much Phoenix's age (that too), but mostly his behaviour. He's so ... static? I mean, sure, they put him on a horse during a cavalry attack which is ludicrous in itself. But in all scenes when he actually has to interact with people, he's like a pillar. Just standing/sitting there. Same facial expression for every emotion. Not even awkward (I would applaud that) but just aloof. Not really interested. Barely "there".

We're talking Napoleone Buonaparte here. That little ball of condensed energy. Always impatient, always in motion. The guy who could not sit still long enough even for painters to do a quick drawing. The guy whose quickly changing features painters complained were so hard to render. The guy who would fire off a salvo of questions to anyone he met because he wanted to see and know everything. The guy whose piercing glance and seductive smile are mentioned so often by pretty much everyone who met him, especially in his youth.

Which might just be the crux? "People who met him" for the biggest part excluded Brits. Those only got to see him during the brief peace time in the Consulate, and then again on Saint Helena. Interactions with him were very limited.

It would make sense for the movie to be based mostly on anglophone sources. Do British sources portrait Napoleon in a different way because their view of him is mostly determined by the depressed, defiant, caged Napoleon of Saint Helena? - From what I've seen, the first thing most European sources mention about his character is: intelligence, willpower, activity, ambition. - In the Ridley Scott movie, only "ambition" seems to be left.

[sunkentreasurecove]

[histoireettralala]

Plague strikes in Jaffa.

Larrey has established his ambulance in a trench near the ramparts and observes that several wounded also present suspicious bluish tumors in the groin. Everything saddens and overwhelms him; for the first time, he understands with fear that a blind butchery can replace loyal fighting. "I will dispense with speaking of the horrible consequences which the assault of a place usually entails. I sadly witnessed that of Jaffa."

With his colleagues, he operates, heals and treats 242 wounded, which he evacuates to a large convent, without neglecting around twenty wounded women whom he treats for several days in a row. For his part, Desgenettes has opened a second hospital where the "feverish" are flocking.

"I refused to ever pronounce the name of plague," he said, faithful in this to Bonaparte's instructions. Psychologically, this carefully nurtured official lie is beneficial, as the sick can retain hope of recovery, and the rest of the military retain a carefree, high morale.

Larrey, a man of practice, observes that out of ten patients stricken with plague, five to eight die from it despite the courage and zeal that he grants to Desgenettes. At this rate, the whole army risks perishing through ignorance of the danger: "Let us not believe, however, that the name of plague has greatly frightened our soldiers. They were too accustomed to receiving all kinds of impressions without emotion. Their moral and physical sensibility was, so to speak, blunted by the various shocks they had received in the painful campaigns which they had already made. It would therefore have been desirable, from the first days of the invasion of the plague, to have presented to the soldier, under the less unfavorable colors however, the true character of this disease [..] "

During the crossing of the Mediterranean, Larrey has read the report of the plague of Marseilles in 1720 and he remembers that Chirac, then doctor of the Regent, had held as a dogma that this alleged malignant fever was not contagious, until the streets strewn with 50,000 dead bodies brought him a tragic denial. Larrey expends great effort in demanding that the army's bivouacs be established outside the city, that clothing, objects and various debris abandoned by the Turks and likely to be contaminated be burned in the streets. To his great displeasure, he was told of Bonaparte's visit to the contagious district. [..]

Going from bed to bed, Bonaparte questions each patient, jokes with him and comforts him; arrived in the middle of the room, he stops and for an hour and a half, discusses with Larrey, Desgenettes and the medical staff about the hygienic conditions and how to improve the organization. This visit lasts too long, say the doctors. In such a dangerous environment, one cannot afford to expose the head of the army, the one on whom everything rests, so the entourage moves so as to lead him discreetly towards the exit.

The maneuver is about to succeed when Bonaparte sees a nurse lifting a plague victim whose clothes are still soiled with pus. Without anyone being able to hold him back, the general rushes forward, takes the patient in his arms, squeezes a bubo to extract the pus, then lets the nurse finish.

For Desgenettes, this is too much; he pushes Bonaparte towards the door.

"What have you done, general, haven't you measured the danger?

-But I'm only doing my duty, am I not the general-in-chief? "

The feat goes around the army [..]

In the evening, Larrey makes an assessment of his days, reflects, compiles his files, sorts his observations or autopsies recent dead to unravel the mystery of what is still unknown.

He gathers well-verified facts. Twelve to fifteen daily deaths prove the epidemic and contagious nature; if the disease begins with a high fever, a delusional state, a charcoal purpura, the buboes do not have time to appear because death occurs in less than twenty-four hours. If, on the contrary, the buboes appear first, give good suppuration and if the fever does not ignite until after two days, the prognosis is much better: "It is also probable that this pestilential germ acts in the manner of a few other viruses, such as smallpox, measles and scarlet fever (...) During the campaign in Syria, I wanted to search, even in the bowels of the dead, for the causes and effects of the plague. " [..]

Jean Marchioni - Place à monsieur Larrey, chirurgien de la garde impériale.

[ghostcanvas]

Antoine-Jean Gros, Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa (1804)

[benibunaannemzorladi]

Günaydın 🌞 Bugün sizlere eserleriyle Neo-Klasisizm'den* Romantizm'e** geçişi belirleyen, 1771 Paris doğumlu Antoine-Jean Gros'tan bahsetmek istiyorum. Sanatçı bir ailenin oğlu olan Gros, 1785 senesinde Jacques-Louis David'in öğrencisi olmuştur. Gros aynı zamanda David'in gözde öğrencilerinden biridir. Renkleri eserlerine duygusallık ve ıstırap yüklü sahneler üzerinden yansıtmış, bu da sanatçının romantik tarzının belirleyicisi olmuştur. 1793-1800 seneleri arasında İtalya'da çalışırken Napolyon ile tanışan ve maiyetine katılan Gros, Napolyon için eserler yapmıştır. En bilinen eserlerinden biri olan 'Napoleon on the Battlefield of Eylau' isimli eserini 1808 senesinde yapmış ve genel olarak savaşı yücelten bir alışılmışı olsa da, eser Salon'da sergilendiği zaman, ceset yığını görüntüsü Paris'lilerde şok etkisi yaratmıştır. David'in sürgüne gönderilmesinden sonra 1816 senesinde onun atölyesini devralmış, profesör olmuştur. 1835 senesinde Seine Nehri'nden atlayarak intihar etmiş, şapkasının içine yerleştirdiği not sonrasında bulunmuştur. Notta " Hayattan bıktığını, ihanete uğramasını tek çekilebilir kılan şeyin, sonunu getirmek olduğunu' yazdığı bilinmektedir. *(Antik Yunan ve Antik Roma dönemine ait tarzların yeniden canlandırılmasıyla ortaya çıkan bir akımdır. Bu akımın en önemli özelliklerinden biri, önceki dönem olan Barok Sanatı'na ve aşırı süslemeciliğe duyulan tepkinin ortaya konulmasıdır.) **( XVIII. yüzyılın sonlarına doğru Avrupa’da ortaya çıkan, başlıca özelliği duyguların ve içgüdülerin yüceltilmesi, ulusal özelliklerin değer kazanması, aşırı ölçüde coşkuya ve imgeye dayanma olan sanat akımıdır.) 1- Napoleon on the Battlefield of Eylau / 2- Portrait of Madame Recamier / 3- Murat Defeating the Turkish Army at Aboukir / 4- Portrait of Maistre Sisters / 5- Embarquement de la duchesse d'Angoulême à Pauillac / 6- Equestrian portrait of prince Boris Yusupov / 7- Étude de cheval arabe harnaché / 8- Madame Pasteur / 9- Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa / 10- Bonaparte at the Pont d'Arcole #antoinejeangros #art #sanat #painter #frenchpainter #napoleonbonaparte #napoleon #war #eylau #neoklasik #neoclassicism #romantizm ##benibunaannemzorladi https://www.instagram.com/p/B4wTRAhgBK_/?igshid=d7pw1puvhbco

[the-french-thinkers]

The Great Paintings of Napoleon’s First Empire

By Yannis Leclerq

In April 1804 the French Council of State officially suggested the creation of the Empire. On May 18, 1804, the Senate adopted the new constitution, entrusting the Government of the Republic to Napoleon Bonaparte, then Emperor of France.

Many artists have celebrated Napoleon through artistic paintings since.

In 1796, the first painting appeared: “Bonaparte at the Pont d’Arcole” is a painting by Antoine-Jean Gros, a historical and neo-classical painter.

This painting highlights the virtues of the military leader, those embodying the young general at the head of the Italian army.

In reality, this scene never happened, but this did not prevent the artist making it part of Napoleon’s legend.

Many themes animate this painting, including passion, courage and will, all thanks to the skill of Gros who was at the Battle of Arcole. He then managed to obtain Bonaparte’s portrait in Milan. Calling himself a “providential savior” and “heroic conqueror,” Bonaparte, in this painting leads his troops, sword in hand, to snatch victory.

Another masterpiece from this artist, “Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa,” was completed in March 1799. The goal was to create a certain romanticism. The piece was commissioned by Napoleon to counter negative rumors.

According to Wikipedia, “The commission was an attempt to embroider Bonaparte's mythology and quell reports that Napoleon had ordered fifty plague victims in Jaffa be given fatal doses of opium during his retreat from his Syrian expedition.”

The year was 1804. The French Empire was being created and this work of propaganda was part of the strategy.

Bonaparte is depicted as being in the lineage of the Thaumaturgus kings and as an intermediate between God and men. This scene takes place in the Holy Land and responds to Napoleon’s desire to establish his global legitimacy.

Jacques Louis David was Bonaparte’s official painter.

“Napoleon Crossing the Alps” is his most famous piece. It features Napoleon crossing the Alps. It is an idealized version of this journey.

As a personification of the romantic hero, the Premiere Consul triumphs over his mount in a diagonal position, as a symbol of his ascension. A true masterpiece, it makes Bonaparte one of the greatest conquerors.

Charles IV of Spain commissioned four paintings of Napoleon by David, including this one.

Make way for one of the most sacred, “The Coronation of the Emperor Napoleon.” It is kept at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

This composition shows the coronation of December 2, 1804 in the Notre Dame Cathedral. This painting took three years of meticulous work. David paints a group portrait in which everything comes together to bring the gaze back to the central stage, commemorating the ceremony of the coronation.

The coronation of Josephine is chosen as the ultimate subject of the painting. This choice allowed us to have enough precise detail to identify each character easily.

[art-histormemes]

Jean-Antoine Gros Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa (1804 CE) Oil on canvas - 532 × 720 cm Paris, France, The Louvre

For more wild art things, consider donating to my Ko-Fi! / I’m also on Instagram and Twitter!

[caveartfair]

An L.A. Dinner Party Spotlights How Napoleon Used Art to Keep the Throne

Napoleon Crossing the Saint-Bernard, 1801-02. Jacques-Louis David Musée National du Château de Versailles

Napoleon on his imperial throne, 1806. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Musee des Beaux-Arts, Rennes

At the end of a long table, a man and a woman sit with paper crowns atop their head and fake beauty marks on their faces. Behind them, a projection reads “show me what autocracy looks like; this is what autocracy looks like.” On the left is a portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte and on the right a photograph of President Trump.

This pageantry was staged at Los Angeles food and art space Thank You for Coming, to set the scene for a discussion of the role that art plays under an authoritarian regime, and specifically, the way Napoleon used art to bolster his public image.

The one-night-only event, dubbed “Napoleon Salon: Dinner in the First Empire,” was produced through a collaboration between Thank You for Coming and the online publication Dilettante Army. The dinner featured six courses tied to certain historical and sociopolitical facts about Napoleon’s reign, and the culture in which he lived.

At the meal, Dilettante Army editor-in-chief Sara Clugage spoke to guests about Napoleon’s reign, and shared the history behind the food served that evening—including tomato consommé, a lemon sorbet to cleanse the palate after the second course, and beef medallions. The meal ended with pastries, some of which were decorated in Napoleon’s colors.

Pastries made by Cayetano Talavera. Courtesy of Dilettante Army/Thank You for Coming.

“Napoleon didn’t have a drop of royal blood in his body,” Clugage told me days before the dinner. Due to the fact that he was a foreigner, born in Corsica, he wasn’t in good standing when it came to top commanding positions, which were normally reserved for those of higher blood. To compensate for this and solidify his role as a strong leader, Napoleon went to great lengths to ensure that his image was crafted flawlessly.

“He ruled in kind of the strongman fashion where everything he did had to be better than the average person,” said Clugage. “One way to do that is by having the best things and throwing the best parties. And he made that happen.”

At the dinner, Clugage noted that Napoleon didn’t really care for food that much; he was a picky eater. But it was in his time that his chef Marie Antoine Carême rose to celebrity status.

At the state banquets where Carême cooked, Napoleon showed his power and wealth through symbols that pervaded his palaces. In step with tradition, Clugage’s dinner table was set with choice napkins and a tablecloth featuring some of Napoleon’s favorite motifs: the hand of justice and the imperial eagle.

The Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon and the Coronation of Empress Joséphine on December 2, 1804, 1806-07. Jacques-Louis David Musée du Louvre, Paris

“Napoleon put big capital Ns on everything,” said Clugage. “He used an imperial eagle and a bee on everything in all of his palaces—the door plates had an eagle with a laurel wreath and the star of destiny. It was just absolutely everywhere.”

His need to create these symbols benefitted many makers, such as the porcelain factory of Sèvres. Though more widely recognized today are the portraits and paintings he commissioned from leading artists. He hired Jacques-Louis David as his court painter and looked back to the portraits of Emperor Augustus, in keeping with his desire to “establish a visual link between himself and Roman emperors.”

“Artists were really well paid and he went to the salons at the Louvre himself,” said Clugage. “He would recognize painters and give them medals from the factories that he had founded.” Though on the flipside, with his patronage there also came some censorship. “You couldn’t criticize the sovereign or the government in any way,” Clugage notes, and, “even though artists made these innovations with form, content was really static.”

Antoine-Jean Gros, Battle of the Pyramids, July 21, 1798, 1810.

Antoine-Jean Gros, Bonaparte Visiting the Victims of the Plague at Jaffa, March 11, 1799, 1804.

Napoleon often dictated the details and composition of a piece, from the size of the canvas, the presence (or absence) of figures, and the poses of each subject. He commissioned paintings of his battles, to ensure they would be recorded for posterity. Antoine-Jean Gros’s paintings like Napoleon at the Battle of the Pyramids (1810) show him as all-powerful conqueror. And Gros’s Bonaparte Visiting the Victims of the Plague at Jaffa, March 11, 1799 (1804) make his touch seem like a healing one.

Despite the common myth around Napoleon’s height, what bothered him more was his position in the world, Clugage explains, and the fact that he was born into minor Genoese nobility in Corsica. These paintings became a way to reinforce his power—something that Clugage sees as eerily familiar in terms of the current presidency. Both men, she argues, are “very interested in the idea of a personal brand.”

—Eva Recinos

from Artsy News

[napoleonicrevival]

[paintedimage]

Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa (Bonaparte visitant les pestiférés de Jaffa) Antoine-Jean Gros 1804 Oil on canvas, 532x720cm 

[histoireettralala]

Antoine-Jean Gros

Antoine Jean Gros à l’âge de 20 ans (1790), by François Gérard (Toulouse, Musée des Augustins).

Antoine Jean Gros is rightly regarded as a forerunner of Romanticism. Even more than his paintings, his drawings bear witness to a rapid departure from his master's classical teaching, to the final break with neoclassical aesthetics and the assertion of a new style announcing this new artistic trend. In the most dramatic representations, the free and impetuous craftsmanship of the lines and the large layers of wash drawing reveals these strong and original qualities of Gros's art which pushed Delacroix to isolate the artist within the Davidian school and to place him at the head of the new school of painting.

Antoine-Jean Gros, Baron Gros, born March 16, 1771 in Paris, and died June 25, 1835 in Meudon, is a neoclassical and pre-Romantic French painter.

He is born into a family of artists: his mother, Pierrette Madeleine Cécile Durant, is a pastellist, and his father Jean Antoine Gros, a painter in miniatures, and an astute collector of paintings. He teaches his son to draw when he reaches the age of six, and he proves to be a demanding master; he is also initiated by Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, friend of the family; in 1785, Antoine Jean enters, of his own free will, the workshop of Jacques-Louis David which he assiduously attends while continuing to follow the courses at the college Mazarin. He rubs shoulders with other future great painters of his generation, such as Girodet and Gérard.

Autoportrait (1795) Antoine Jean Gros (Château de Versailles)

The Revolution affects the family in its possessions, and Antoine Jean Gros must live on his own means. He devotes himself entirely to his profession and participates in 1792 at the grand prix, but without success. In 1793, he leaves France for Italy; he visits Florence, and settles in Genoa where he lives from his art. He meets Joséphine de Beauharnais, and follows her to Milan, where he is well received by her husband.

On November 15, 1796, Gros is present with the army near Arcole; Bonaparte orders him a painting to immortalize this victory (this living image of heroism, Delacroix will say). The painting is exhibited in the 1801 Salon and the engraving goes around in Italy and France, increasing Gros's renown. Satisfied with the work, Bonaparte gives him a job as a magazine inspector so that he can follow the army. Then in 1797, on Joséphine's recommendation, he appoints him head of the commission responsible for selecting the works of art intended to enrich the collections of the Louvre museum.

Bonaparte au Pont d’Arcole (1796), Antoine Jean Gros (Château de Versailles)

His stay in Italy is longer than is traditional for his contemporaries. It is also different because Gros does not go to Rome, but travels to northern Italy, and is less influenced by Antiquity than by modern painters.

He escapes in 1799 from a besieged Genoa, goes to Paris, and sets up his workshop at the Capucins, in 1801. Bonaparte continues to place orders for him, such as Bonaparte visiting the plague victims of Jaffa or in 1806 The Battle of Aboukir, or Napoleon on the battlefield of Eylau in 1808. Gros thus specializes in the representation of the most significant military episodes of the imperial epic. He finally wins the competition in 1804 with Bonaparte visiting the plague victims of Jaffa - a skillfully composed episode, respecting traditional principles (unity of action, expression of passions). He also heroizes Bonaparte, assimilable by his gesture to the kings of France.

Bonaparte visitant les pestiférés de Jaffa (1804), Antoine Jean Gros (Paris, Musée du Louvre)

La Bataille d’Aboukir (1806), Antoine Jean Gros (Château de Versailles)

Napoléon sur le champ de bataille d’Eylau (1808), Antoine Jean Gros (Paris, Musée du Louvre)

In 1810, his works Madrid and Napoleon at the Pyramids (Palace of Versailles) show a decline in his painting. However, he is still successful. The decoration of the interior of the Sainte-Geneviève church, from 1811 to 1824, earns him the title of baron by Charles X, and Gros then returns to the vigor of his beginnings. Despite some reluctance, he takes over the workshop of Jacques-Louis David.

He will be one of the greatest student trainers of this half century. He becomes a member of the Institute, and on November 5, 1816, professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.

The change of regime in 1815 sees the advent of romantic painting, which enjoys an increasing success from the 1820s. Shared between his pictorial aspirations announcing romanticism and the classical teaching of his master David, Baron Gros knows a second part of career marked by doubts. While David accuses him of not having yet executed a mythological masterpiece, like his colleagues Girodet and Gérard, Gros obeys him and exhibits from 1825 various mythological works. Their reception by the critics is icy, the genre having gradually fallen into disuse. The romantic youth, fascinated by his Napoleonic paintings, is indignant at this turnaround in a master whom they particularly like. In 1835, Gros sends his Hercules and Diomedes (Musée des Augustins de Toulouse) to the Salon, which is criticized. It will be his last shipment to the Show, but also his last painting.

Hercule et Diomède (1835), Antoine Jean Gros (Toulouse, Musée des Augustins)

Feeling neglected by his students and experiencing personal difficulties, Gros decides to commit suicide. On June 25, 1835, he is found drowned on the banks of the Seine near Meudon. In a last message he leaves in his hat, he writes that "weary of life, and betrayed by the last faculties that [made it] bearable, [he had] resolved to [get rid of it."

He is buried in Paris in the Père-Lachaise cemetery (25th division).

A few years after his death, Delacroix will definitively rehabilitate the master's reputation, placing him at the head of the modern school of painting for his strong and original qualities

Antoine-Jean Gros is seen as the most talented of all Jaques-Louis David's followers and a key figure in the development of Romanticism. His use of colour and his dramatic style was a significant influence on Gericault, Delacroix, the populist history painter Paul Delaroche (1797-1856), and the short-lived Richard Parkes Bonington (1802-28), among many others. Paintings by Gros can be seen in some of the best art museums around the world.

Sources used:

www.louvre.fr

www.universalis.fr

scribeaccroupi.fr

www.visual-arts-cork.com