Pierre-Paul Prud'hon
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Pierre-Paul Prud'hon | |
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 Prud'hon's only known self-portrait, c. 1788–1790 | |
| Born | 4 April 1758 |
| Died | 16 February 1823 (aged 64) Paris, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Known for | Painting, drawing |
| Notable work | Madame Georges Anthony and Her Two Sons |
| Movement | Neoclassicism, Romanticism |
Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ pɔl pʁydɔ̃], 4 April 1758 – 16 February 16, 1823) was a French Neo-classical painter and draughtsman best known in his own time for his allegorical paintings and portraits, now for his drawings. He painted a portrait of each of Napoleon's two wives.
He was an early influence on Théodore Géricault. After 1803 he worked so closely with artist Constance Mayer on many paintings, that it is almost impossible to tell where the contribution of one ends and the other begins.[1]
Biography
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Pierre-Paul Prud'hon was born in Cluny, Saône-et-Loire, France. He received his artistic training in the French provinces He married Jeanne Pennet in 1778 in Cluny. They had six children.[3]He went to Italy when he was twenty-six years old to continue his education.
In Paris he became an enthusiastic supporter of the Revolution and made drawings of mythological and republican allegories which were engraved and published by his friend Jacques-Louis Copia.[4]
Prud’hon made some portraits during this period including one of Louis de Saint-Just, one of the key figures in the Reign of Terror.[5]
At the fall of Robespierre,in 1794, Prud’hon found it prudent to leave Paris. He spent two years in Franche-Comte, painting portraits and making book illustrations.
In 1796, it was safe to return to Paris. He decorated rooms in some private mansions with allegories of art, philosophy, wealth, and pleasure.[6]
In 1803, Constance Mayer, already an accomplished artist, entered Prud’hon’s studio as a student. She soon became his close collaborator and mistress. She tried to replace the absent mother of his children. His wife had been separated from him and confined to an insane asylum.
Prud’hon and Mayer worked very well as a team. He produced plans and sketches for an allegory or literary subject and she patiently rendered the final painting. Often the paintings were exhibited as her work. This arrangement left him time for portraits and other work.[7]
Prud’hon’s Portrait of Empress Josephine shows her alone in the garden of her home, Malmaison.[8]After the divorce of Napoleon and Josephine, he was also employed by Napoleon's second wife Marie-Louise.
Prud'hon was at times clearly influenced by Neo-classicism, at other times by Romanticism. He was appreciated by other artists and writers, including Stendhal, Delacroix, Millet and Baudelaire, for his chiaroscuro and convincing realism. He painted Crucifixion (1822) for St. Etienne's Cathedral in Metz; it now hangs in the Louvre.
The young Théodore Géricault had painted copies of work by Prud'hon, whose "thunderously tragic pictures" include his masterpiece, Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime, where oppressive darkness and the compositional base of a naked, sprawled corpse obviously anticipate Géricault's painting The Raft of the Medusa.[2]
Gallery
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Male Nude Study, National Gallery of Art -
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Portrait of Louis de Saint-Just, 1793 -
Nicolas Perchet, 1795, Princeton University Art Museum -
Female Nude, 1800 -
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Portrait of Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, 1817 -
Study for The Dream of Happiness (with Constance Mayer), 1819
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References
[edit]- ^ Laveissière, Sylvain (1998). Pierre-Paul Prud’hon. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. pp. 174–176. ISBN 0-87099-844-7.
- ^ a b Gayford, Martin. "Distinctive power". The Spectator, November 1, 1997. Retrieved from findarticles.com on January 6, 2008.
- ^ Laveissière, Sylvain (1998). Pierre-Paul Prud’hon. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. p. 19. ISBN 0-87099-844-7.
- ^ Laveissière, Sylvain (1998). Pierre-Paul Prud’hon. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. pp. 157–159. ISBN 0-87099-844-7.
- ^ Elderfield, John (1996). The Language of the Body, Drawings by Pierre-Paul Prud’hon. New York: Harry N. Abrams. p. 22. ISBN 0-8109-3585-6.
- ^ Laveissière, Sylvain (1998). Pierre-Paul Prud’hon. NewYork: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 137–138. ISBN 0-87099-845-5.
- ^ Laveissière, Sylvain (1998). Pierre-Paul Prud’hon. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 175–176. ISBN 0-87099-844-7.
- ^ Elderfield, John (1996). The Language of the body : drawings by Pierre-Paul Prud’hon. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. p. 32. ISBN 0-8109-3585-6.
Further reading
[edit]General studies
[edit]Adapted from a following source: Freitag, Wolfgang M. (1997) [1985]. Art Books: A Basic Bibliography of Monographs on Artists (2nd ed.). New York, London: Garland. p. 327, entries nos. 10041–10049. ISBN 0-8240-3326-4.
- Bricon, Etienne (1907). Prud'hon: biographie critique (in French). Paris: H. Laurens. OCLC 1051736394 – via the Internet Archive.
- Clément, Charles (1872). Prud'hon: sa vie, ses œuvres et sa correspondance (in French). Paris: Didier et Cie. OCLC 1051761864 – via the Internet Archive.
- Forest, Alfred (1913). Pierre-Paul Prud'hon : peintre français (1758-1823) (in French). Paris: E. Leroux – via Gallica.
- Friedlaender, Walter (1974) [1952]. David to Delacroix (6th printing, 1974). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-19401-4. OCLC 1029048561. SBN 674-19401-2 – via the Internet Archive.
- Gauthiez, Pierre (1886). Prud'hon. Les Artistes Célèbres. Paris: J. Rouam. OCLC 848495507 – via the Internet Archive.
- Goncourt, Edmond de (1876). Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint, dessiné et gravé de P.P. Prud'hon (in French). Paris: Rapilly. OCLC 1041796905 – via the Internet Archive.
- Grappe, Georges (1958). Prud'hon (in French). Paris: A. Michel. OCLC 2502696.
- Guffey, Elizabeth E. (2001). Drawing an Elusive Line: The Art of Pierre-Paul Prud'hon. Newark: University of Delaware Press. ISBN 0-87413-734-9. OCLC 46462851.
- Guiffrey, Jean (1924). L'œuvre de Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (in French). Paris: A. Colin. OCLC 2743610.
- Laveissière, Sylvain (1998). Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (exhibition catalogue). New York: Metropoliten Museum of Art, distributed by H. N. Abrams. ISBN 0-8709-9845-5. LCCN 97044759 – via the Internet Archive.
- O'Neill, J, ed. (2000). Romanticism & the school of nature : nineteenth-century drawings and paintings from the Karen B. Cohen collection. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- Régamey, Raymond (1928). Prud'hon (in French). Paris: Rieder. OCLC 604652946.
- Voïart, Élise (1824). Notice historique sur la vie et les ouvrages de P.-P. Prudhon, peintre (in French). Paris: Firmin-Didot – via Gallica.
Reference works
[edit]- Bénézit, Emmanuel (2006) [first published in French in 1911–1923]. Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Vol. 11. Paris: Gründ. pp. 436–439. ISBN 2-7000-3081-8 – via the Internet Archive.
- Graul, Richard (1933). "Prudhon, Pierre Paul". In Vollmer, Hans (ed.). Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. Vol. 27. Leipzig: E. A. Seemann. pp. 431–433. OCLC 1072962209.
- Weston, Henry (1996). "Prud'hon, Pierre-Paul". In Turner, Jane (ed.). The Dictionary of Art. Vol. 25. New York: Grove's Dictionaries. pp. 669–672. ISBN 1-884446-00-0 – via the Internet Archive.
External links
[edit]
- Europe in the age of enlightenment and revolution, a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Prud'hon (see index)
- Crucifixion at Web Gallery of Art
- Pierre-Paul Prud’hon: Napoleon’s Draughtsman at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
