INGRES, Jean-Auguste-Dominique,Featured Paintings in Detail (1)

INGRES, Jean-Auguste-Dominique
Featured Paintings in Detail
(1)

Napoleon I on the Imperial Throne
1806
Oil on canvas, 259 x 162 cm
Musée de l'Armée, Paris

(detail)
1806
Musée de l'Armée, Paris

Joan of Arc at the Coronation of
Charles VII in Reims Cathedral
1854
Musée du Louvre, Paris

Joan of Arc at the Coronation of
Charles VII in Reims Cathedral
(detail)
1854

Oedipus and the Sphynx
1808-25

Oedipus and the Sphynx (detail)
1808-25

The Grand Odalisque
1814

The Grand Odalisque (detail)
1814

Raphael and La Fornarina
1814
Oil on canvas, 64.8 x 53.3 cm
Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard
University

Raphael and La Fornarina (detail)
1814
Oil on canvas, 64.8 x 53.3 cm
Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard
University

Roger Freeing Angelica
1819

Roger Freeing Angelica (detail)
1819

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Roger Freeing Angelica
Angelica is the daughter of a king of Cathay in Orlando Furioso, by the Italian poet Ariosto (1474-1533), a romantic epic poem about the conflict between Christians and
Saracens at the time of Charlemagne. Angelica was loved by several knights, Christian and pagan, among them the Christian hero Orlando (Roland). He was maddened (furioso)
with grief and jealousy because she became the lover of, and eventually married, the Moor Modero. Roger (Ruggiero) freeing Angelica is a theme very like Perseus and
Andromeda. Angelica chained to a rock by the seashore is about to be attacked by a sea-monster, the orc. Roger, one of the pagan champions, arrives riding on a hippogriff (a
monster, the creation of the poets of the late middle ages). He dazzles the monster with his magic shield, and places a magic ring on Angelica's finger to protect her. He undoes
her bonds and they ride off together.
Ingres developed a highly sensitive aestheticism, particularly in depicting the beautiful naked body. He excelled his teachers in this, and it was here that he sought an ideal of
form that goes to the limits of what can be done in painting. It is hard to find an equal anywhere in the history of art turned to us by The Grand Odalisque or the body of the
young girl in Roger Freeing Angelica, modeled in soft lines.
The position of the young Angelica, with her head tilted back, is highly exaggerated by modern standards, but the exposed and defenseless neck and the eyes cast up to
suggest that she has fainted are intended to signalise pure feminine submission. In order to portray this unconditional surrender to her rescuer, Ingres has almost made her look
as if she has a goitre. But this calculated submission to the aesthetic of the nude makes it no less erotic precisely because the very evidence of a weak spot in her beauty makes
her seem less remote from the viewer.

Joan of Arc at the Coronation of Charles VII in Reims Cathedral
Charles VII (1403-1461) was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France from 1422 to his death. In 1422, Charles VII inherited the throne of France
under desperate circumstances. Forces of the Kingdom of England and the Duchy of Burgundy occupied Guyenne and northern France, including Paris, the most
populous city, and Reims, the city in which the French kings were traditionally crowned.
His political and military position improved dramatically with the emergence of Joan of Arc as a spiritual leader in France. Joan and other charismatic military leaders
led French troops to several important victories that paved the way for the coronation of Charles VII in 1429 at Reims Cathedral.

Napoleon Bonaparte became Emperor of the French by senatus consultum on 18 May 1804. The splendid coronation ceremony was held a few months later, on 2 December
1804, at Notre-Dame de Paris. On this occasion, Napoleon donned several costumes, including this ceremonial attire worn during the coronation. It was in this costume, which
includes a purple velvet coat decorated with gold bees, that the young painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) depicted him in 1806.
Napoleon has a bee on his coat, which, along with the eagle, was one of the chosen emblems of his empire. On his head, the laurel crown is reminiscent of the emperors of
Ancient Rome, as is the colour purple. Also of note are certain items of regalia (objects of power passed on during the coronation, already carried by the Kings of France): the
sceptre with a statue of Charlemagne , the Main de Justice (right) and a sword inspired by Joyeuse, Charlemagne's legendary sword.
This portrait, now one of the most famous portraits of Napoleon, was nonetheless not well received by its contemporaries, who deemed it "gothic" and "barbarous". The
originality of the composition, face-on, sitting down, the head emerging from a body drowned in an imposing costume, effectively sets it apart from the usual depictions of the
emperor, who resembles an Olympian Jupiter or a Byzantine icon here.
The picture was probably intended for Italy, since the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Italy can be seen in the background.

Oedipus and the Sphynx
Oedipus, a character from Greek mythology, is answering the riddle asked by the fabulous monster, the Sphinx. The picture was initially a figure study that made up one of
Ingres's "dispatches from Rome." Then, almost twenty years later, Ingres enlarged it to make a history painting and in so doing toned down the archaism of the earlier canvas.
However, Oedipus himself remains a figure of outstanding formal harmony.
In a steep, rocky landscape, Oedipus, a character from Greek mythology, is seen naked, in profile, facing the Sphinx. This monster, with the face, head, and shoulders of a
woman, a lion's body, and bird's wings, is standing in the shadows of a cave. Oedipus is giving the solution to the riddle that the Sphinx has asked him, as he has asked all
travelers passing through this region of Thebes. When the monster asked him: "What is it that has a voice and walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and on three in
the evening?" Oedipus answered that it was man who, as a child crawls on all fours, as an adult walks on two legs, and in old age uses a stick as a third leg.
At the bottom of the picture, a discarded foot and human bones recall the previous travelers who have perished after failing to reply. In the background, one of Oedipus's
companions is running away, terrified. Further away, in the distance, the buildings of the city of Thebes can just be made out. The theme of the work is the triumph of intelligence
and of human beauty. But the scene is also one of man confronting his destiny since Oedipus's exploit will lead to him becoming king of Thebes and marrying his mother Jocasta,
as the oracle had predicted when he was born. It was a subject rarely portrayed from the end of the classical period until Ingres, but in the nineteenth century it came to fascinate
many artists, most notably Gustave Moreau.

The Grand Odalisque
The effects in Ingres' paintings largely depend on drawing and linearity, but he also used colour to supremely calculated effect. The cold turquoise of the silk curtain with its
decoration of red flowers intensified the warm flesh tone of the Grande Odalisque.
This nude was painted in 1814 for Napoleon's sister, Queen Caroline Murat. Unlike the realism of Goya's Maja, Ingres' nude is hardly intimate, the eroticism here emerging
slowly from the reserve and the questioning, assessing glance of the naked woman. This is a tradition that goes back to Giorgione and Titian, but Ingres has painted a living
woman and not an allegory of Venus. Nevertheless, the realistic intimacy is lessened by setting the scene in the distant world of the Orient.
For many in the West, the idea of the harem with its available or exploited women trapped in their own closed world was as much proof of the fallen or primitive state of the
East as was its supposed savagery. But it was also infinitely titillating. Ingres's picture is more than this, however. A sense of loss was inevitably embodied in French
perceptions of the East after their defeat in Egypt, and it was perhaps because it sublimated unattainable desires that the theme of the Oriental nude, bather or harem girl
gained such a haunting appeal.
Ingres is remarkable for combining a frank allure with a chilling perfection of flesh. He had picked up his discreet hints of the harem — a turban here, a fan there — from
Oriental artefacts and miniatures in the collections of Gros and Denon. They serve to locate his nude, who otherwise could really belong anywhere, in a sensuous Orient of the
imagination.

1814
Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University
Raphael and La Fornarina is a painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, known in five versions.
Here Ingres draws on Raphael’s relationship with the woman known as “La Fornarina” (the Little Baker), which, according to the biographer Giorgio Vasari, led to the
young artist’s death from an excess of lovemaking. Raphael has just sketched the famous portrait of her, and his beloved subject sits on his knee.
But Raphael has eyes only for his own creation, which, like Ingres’s representation of its model, meets the viewer’s gaze. This triangle of glances is complicated by the
presence of the Virgin in Raphael’s Madonna of the Chair, seen against the back wall, where she resembles the artist’s lover.

1840
Oil on canvas
Columbus Museum of Art
-
Oil on canvas
Private collection
Raphael and La Fornarina is a painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, known in five
versions.
1813, at Riga, disappeared in 1941
1814, Fogg Art Museum
two other versions in private collections
1840, Columbus Museum of Art

Jean Ingres was a French neoclassical painter, who considered himself the protector of French academic orthodoxy,
and fought against the rising popularity of Romanticism. He also considered the leader of the Romantic movement,
Eugene Delacroix, his artistic nemesis.
At age 11, the French Revolution began, disrupting his traditional childhood, which became a constant source of
insecurity. As a budding artist, Ingres was able to observe the many examples of famous artworks of Belgium, Holland,
and Spain, which had been looted during the exploits of Napoleon, and were held at the Louvre.
He freely borrowed from their classical interpretations and used the techniques in his own art, leading to many critics to
accuse him of plundering the past. It was in this vein that his first submissions to the Paris Salon were received very
poorly. Ingres’ humiliation was so deep that he vowed never to return to Paris.
Throughout his early art career, his painting style, which emphasized the purity of color and did not employ the gradual
shifting of color and shading as in Romantic paintings, led to many bad reviews. Ironically, it was only the Romantic
artists, whom he so hated, that recognized and appreciated Ingres’s talents.
At the end of the Napoleonic empire, Ingres found himself without patronage and penniless. He survived by illustrating
drawings for English tourists, many of which rank among his best creations. In 1824, he exhibited his Vow of Louis XIII,
which led to his critical acclaim and made him widely popular. Even his earlier works, which had led to his humiliation
and disgrace, were held up as masterpieces, and widely distributed.

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