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The light of the south attracted Meissonnier. "It is delightful to sun oneself in the brilliant light of the South instead of wandering about like gnomes in the fog. The view at Antibes is one of the fairest sights in nature." And it is possible that the influence of plein-air landscapists had encouraged Meissonier to abandon for a while his obsession with historical authenticity in favour of something more spontaneous: " of creating eye-catching visual effects by means of a few salient touches of the brush. If these Antibes landscapes never matched [-] the work of Pissarro, they nonetheless revealed Meissonier as a painter of remarkable versatility whose ambitions were not entirely at odds with those of the École des Batignolles." |
Meissonier worked with elaborate care and a scrupulous observation of nature. Some of his works, as for instance his 1807, remained ten years in course of execution. To the great Exhibition of 1878 he contributed sixteen pictures: the portrait of Alexandre Dumas fils which had been seen at the Salon of 1877, Cuirassiers of 1805, A Venetian Painter, Moreau and his Staff before Hohenlinden, a Portrait of a Lady, the Road to La Salice, The Two Friends, The Outpost of the Grand Guard, A Scout, and Dictating his Memoirs. Thenceforward he exhibited less in the Salons, and sent his work to smaller exhibitions. Being chosen president of the Great National Exhibition in 1883, he was represented there by such works as The Pioneer, The Army of the Rhine, The Arrival of the Guests, and Saint Mark. |
On 24 May 1884 an exhibition was opened at the Petit Gallery of Meissonier's collected works, including 146 examples. As president of the jury on painting at the Exhibition of 1889 he contributed some new pictures. In the following year the New Salon was formed (the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts), and Meissonier became its president. He exhibited there in 1890 his painting 1807; and in 1891, shortly after his death, his Barricade was displayed there. |
A less well-known class of work than his painting is a series of etchings: The Last Supper, The Skill of Vuillaume the Lute Player, The Little Smoker, The Old Smoker, the Preparations for a Duel, Anglers, Troopers, The Reporting Sergeant, and Polichinelle, in the Hertford House collection. He also tried lithography, but the prints are now scarcely to be found. Of all the painters of the century, Meissonier was one of the most fortunate in the matter of payments. His Cuirassiers, now in the late duc d'Aumale's collection at Chantilly, was bought from the artist for £10,000, sold at Brussels for £11,000, and then resold for £16,000. |
Besides his genre portraits, he painted some others: those of Doctor Lefevre, of Chenavard, of Vanderbilt, of Doctor Guyon, and of Stanford. He also collaborated with the painter Français in a picture of The Park at St Cloud. |
Meissonier was attached by Napoleon III to the imperial staff, and accompanied him during the campaign in Italy at the beginning of the war in 1870. During the Siege of Paris (1870–1871) he was colonel of a regiment de marche, one of the improvised units thrown up in the chaos of the Franco-Prussian war. In 1840 he was awarded a third-class medal, a second-class medal in 1841, first-class medals in 1843 and 1844 and medals of honour at the great exhibitions. In 1846 he was appointed knight of the Légion d'honneur and promoted to the higher grades in 1856, 1867 (June 29), and 1880 (July 12), receiving the Grand Cross in 1889 (October 29). |
He nevertheless cherished certain ambitions which remained unfulfilled. He hoped to become a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts, but the appointment he desired was never given to him. He also aspired to be chosen deputy or made senator, but he was not elected. In 1861 he succeeded Abel de Pujol as member of the Academy of Fine Arts. On the occasion of the centenary festival in honour of Michelangelo in 1875 he was the delegate of the Institute of France to Florence, and spoke as its representative. Meissonier was an admirable draughtsman upon wood, his illustrations to Les Conties Rémois (engraved by Lavoignat), to Lamartine's Fall of an Angel to Paul and Virginia, and to The French Painted by Themselves being among the best known. The leading engravers and etchers of France have been engaged upon plates from the works of Meissonier, and many of these plates command the highest esteem of collectors. Meissonier died in Paris on 31 January 1891. |
When the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts was re-vitalized, in 1890, Ernest Meissonier was elected its first chairman, but he died soon; his successor was Puvis de Chavannes. The vice-president was Auguste Rodin. |
His son, Jean Charles Meissonier, also a painter, was his father's pupil, and was admitted to the Légion d'honneur in 1889. |
Rue Meissonier, in the 17th Arrondissement in Paris, France, is named after him. |
In 2020, Meissonier's painting Joueurs d’échecs was restituted to the heirs of Marguerite Stern, from whom it was looted under the Nazis. |
Gallery |
Pupils |
Georges Bretegnier |
Maurice Courant |
Édouard Detaille |
Lucien Gros |
Daniel Ridgway Knight |
Charles Meissonier |
Louis Monziès |
Alphonse Moutte |
Gaylord Sangston Truesdell |
See also |
Military art |
List of claims for restitution for Nazi-looted art |
Notes |
References |
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Frantz, Henri (1911). "Meissonier, Jean Louis Ernest". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 85–86. |
King, Ross (2006), The Judgment of Paris, New York: Walker & Company, ISBN 0-8027-1466-8 |
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Ernest Meissonier" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. |
Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). "Meissonier, Jean Louis Ernest" . Encyclopedia Americana. |
Further reading |
Works published up to 1901 |
Alexandre, Histoire de la peinture militaire en France (Paris, 1891) |
Laurens, Notice sur Meissonier (Paris, 1892) |
Gréard, Meissonier (Paris and London, 1897) |
T. G. Dumas, Maîtres modernes (Paris, 1884) |
Ch. Formentin, Meissonier, sa vie—son œuvre (Paris, 1901) |
J. W. Mollett, Illustrated Biographies of Modern Artists: Meissonier (London, 1882) |
Contemporary scholarship |
Marc Gotlieb, The plight of emulation: Ernest Meissonier and French salon painting (Princeton University Press, 1996) ISBN 0-691-04374-4, ISBN 978-0-691-04374-6 |
Patricia Mainardi, The end of the Salon: art and the state in the early Third Republic (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993) ISBN 0-521-43251-0 |
External links |
Media related to Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier at Wikimedia Commons |
Ernest Meissonier in American public collections, on the French Sculpture Census website |
Jean-Marc Nattier (17 March 1685 – 7 November 1766) was a French painter. He was born in Paris, the second son of Marc Nattier (1642–1705), a portrait painter, and of Marie Courtois (1655–1703), a miniaturist. He is noted for his portraits of the ladies of King Louis XV's court in classical mythological attire. |
Life |
He received his first instruction from his father, and from his uncle, the history painter Jean Jouvenet (1644–1717). He enrolled in the Royal Academy in 1703 and applied himself to copying pictures in the Luxembourg Palace, making a series of drawings of the Marie de Médici painting cycle by Peter Paul Rubens. The publication (1710) of engravings based on these drawings made Nattier famous, but he declined to proceed to the French Academy in Rome, though he had taken the first prize at the Paris Academy at the age of fifteen. In 1715 he went to Amsterdam, where Peter the Great was then staying, and painted portraits of the tsar and the empress Catherine, but declined an offer to go to Russia. |
Nattier aspired to be a history painter. Between 1715 and 1720 he devoted himself to compositions like the Battle of Pultawa, which he painted for Peter the Great, and the Petrification of Phineus and of his Companions, which led to his election to the Academy. He died in Paris in 1766. |
Portraits |
The financial collapse of 1720 caused by the schemes of Law all but ruined Nattier, who found himself forced to devote his whole energy to portraiture, which was more lucrative. He became the painter of the artificial ladies of Louis XV's court. He subsequently revived the genre of the allegorical portrait, in which a living person is depicted as a Greco-Roman goddess or other mythological figure. |
Nattier's graceful and charming portraits of court ladies in this mode were very fashionable, partly because he could beautify a sitter while also retaining her likeness. The most notable examples of his straightforward portraiture are the Marie Leczinska at the Dijon Museum, and the group portrait The Artist Surrounded by His Family, dated 1730. Another excellent example of Nattier's work and sense of composition is his 1738 portrait of Mathilde de Carbonnel-Canisy, marquise d'Antin. The portrait is permanently exhibited at the musée Jacquemart-André in Paris and remains one of the most popular works in the Jacquemart-André Collection. |
Many of his notable paintings are on permanent exhibit at major museums. Thus at the Louvre is his Magdalen; in the Musee Jacquemart-Andre his Portrait of Mathilde de Canisy, marquise d'Antin; at Nantes the portrait of La Camargo and A Lady of the Court of Louis XV. At Orléans a Head of a Young Girl, at Marseilles a portrait of Mme de Pompadour, at Perpignan a portrait of Louis XV, and at Valenciennes a portrait of Le Duc de Boufflers. The Versailles Museum owns an important group of two ladies, and the Dresden Gallery a portrait of the Maréchal de Saxe. |
At the Wallace collection Nattier is represented by The comtesse de Tillières (formerly known as Portrait of a Lady in Blue), Mademoiselle de Clermont en sultane, and The marquise de Belestat. In the early part of the 20th century in the collection of Mr Lionel Phillips were the duchess of Flavacourt as Le Silence, and the duchess of Châteauroux as Le Point du jour (now at Marseilles). A portrait of the Comtesse de Neubourg and her Daughter formed part of the Vaile Collection, and realized 4500 guineas at the sale of this collection in 1903. Nattier's works have been engraved by Alphonse Leroy, Tardieu, Jean Audran (1667–1756), Dupin and many other noted craftsmen.The 1753 Marquis de Marigny is in the collection of the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe. |
The Getty Museum has Madame Bonier de la Mosson as Diana, 1742. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has Madame de Maison-Rouge as Diana, 1756. The 1744 Duchesse de Chartres as Hebe Nationalmuseum is in the collection of Nationalmuseum. |
Select gallery |
Sources |
Nattier: Jean-Marc Nattier Masters in Art: A Series of Illustrated Monographs: Issued Monthly; June, 1902, Part 30, Vol. 3, (Bates & Guild Co., Boston) |
References |
Media related to Jean-Marc Nattier at Wikimedia Commons |
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Nattier, Jean Marc". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 273.; Endnotes: |
See "J. M. Nattier", by Paul Mantz, in the Gazette des beaux-arts (1894) |
Life of Nattier, by his daughter, Madame Tocqué |
Nattier by Pierre de Nolhac (1904, revised 1910) |
French Painters of the XVIIIth Century, by Lady Dilke (London, 1899). |
Joachim Beuckelaer (c. 1533 – c. 1570/4) was a Flemish painter specialising in market and kitchen scenes with elaborate displays of food and household equipment. His development of the genre of market and kitchen scenes was influential on the development of still life art in Northern Europe as well as Italy and Spain. He also painted still lifes with no figures in the central scene. He further added the staffage (i.e. the figures) or the garments in works of other local painters, such as Anthonis Mor. |
Life |
Details about the life of the artist are scarce. Beuckelaer was born in Antwerp into a family of painters. He was likely the son of the painter Mattheus Beuckeleer and the grandson of the painter Cornelis de Beuckelaer. His brother, known as Huybrecht Beuckeleer, also became a painter. The works of Huybrecht have occasionally been misattributed to Joachim. He possibly learned to paint in the workshop of his uncle, the Dutch painter Pieter Aertsen, who had married his aunt Kathelijne Beuckelaer. Aertsen was best known for his market and kitchen scenes. |
Beuckelaer became an independent master in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1560. He remained active in Antwerp throughout his career and continued to develop themes pioneered in painting by Aertsen, but arguably surpassing his presumed master in skill. Beuckelaer was reportedly not getting high prices for his works during his lifetime. It was only after his death that his works dramatically increased in price. However, the large size of his later works and the number of workshop variants produced likely point to a degree of success at least towards the end of his life. |
The date of his death is not known with certainty but fell likely between 1570 and 1574. |
Work |
Beuckelaer specialised in market and kitchen scenes with elaborate displays of food and household equipment. He also painted some brothel scenes. During the 1560s, especially during the early part of the decade, Beuckelaer painted some purely religious works, possibly because there was little demand for his kitchen and market scenes. For these religious works, unlike for the kitchen and market scenes, drawings are known. Most of these were destroyed in the course of the Calvinist iconoclasm which swept the Low Countries, starting in Antwerp in 1566. His still life of a carcass referred to as Slaughtered pig (Wallraf-Richartz Museum) dated 1563 is likely the earliest dated example of this subject. In the 1560s he also made designs for stained glass. |
Many of Beuckelaer's works, as those of Pieter Aertsen, show in the foreground tables full of bountiful produce which can be interpreted as temptations of earthly satisfactions. Often these works not only reference the pleasures of food but also contain objects and gestures which point to the temptations of sexual desire. For instance, visual representations of men's purses occasionally evoke men's genitals. These purses often had straps or false flaps and smaller pouches for coins on the bag's external side which could be very suggestive as is shown in the Market farmers in the Kunsthistorisches Museum. In the Poultry dealer and a young woman with an array of fruit, vegetables, fish and game on a table before a house, the poultry dealer is holding a large chicken and standing close behind the young woman. As in other cultures, the chicken or rooster was frequently a reference to male genitalia and sexuality, while the Dutch word 'vogel' (bird) was slang for sexual intercourse (as in the verb 'vogelen'). |
As an antidote to these earthly temptations, Beuckelaer's market scenes, like those of Aertsen, often incorporate biblical episodes in the background. His Four Elements series National Gallery, London are a good example. The painting depicting the element Water, for example, shows a fish market selling 12 kinds of fish, representing the twelve disciples of Jesus. Through an archway in the background the miraculous draught of fishes is depicted, with Christ appearing to his apostles and telling them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat. The scene appearing most frequently in the background is that of Christ in the House of Mary and Martha. It recounts the story of Christ visiting the sisters at their home in Bethany, and reprimanding Martha for busying herself with household matters rather than heeding his message. The moral message of these religious scenes was to encourage viewers to leave behind the temptations of the flesh and move towards the spiritual food offered by the Christian faith. |
Both Aertsen and Beuckelaer gradually developed images that detached the world of produce from the religious content of their earlier hybrid images. These later works depict either kitchens or markets and the persons associated with those activities, more often women than men. The later paintings by Beuckelaer show a greater profusion of foodstuffs in the market scenes, together with a more prominent foregrounding of female peasants immersed within these sales items. Beuckelaer also produced several images of fish stalls, often with background religious scenes, but sometimes completely separated from any additional narrative or reference. In the year 1563 Beuckelaer was experimenting with more outspoken landscape settings in an innovative way, which was influential on later artists in Antwerp. |
One of the still lives without figures in the kitchen or market scene itself is the Kitchen scene with Christ at Emmaus (c. 1660/65, Mauritshuis, The Hague) which is unique in his oeuvre. In this composition Beuckelaer painted a kitchen with numerous ingredients for a lavish meal: vegetables, fruits, nuts, poultry and a large cut of meat. The table linen and crockery are also in view. In the background, Beuckelaer depicted the biblical story of Christ at Emmaus. This story is pushed into the background while the secondary matter of the dinner preparations for Christ's visit at Emmaus has become the painting's main subject. This and similar scenes are regarded as the forerunners of the still lifes of the 17th century, in which the narrative elements vanished entirely. |
Beuckelaer was also employed painting the figures or the garments in the work of other artists such as Anthonis Mor and Cornelis van Dalem. |
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