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WORLDS TOP ARTISTS
For top creative practitioners, see:
Best Artists of All Time.
For the greatest view painters, see:
Best Landcape Artists.
For the greatest still life art, see:
Best Still Life Painters.
For the greatest portraitists
see: Best Portrait Artists.
For the greatest genre-painting, see:
Best Genre Painters.
For the top allegorical painting,
see: Best History Painters.
WORLD'S BEST ART
For a list of the best examples of
fine art painting, by the
world's top artists, see below:
Greatest Paintings Ever
Oils, watercolours, mixed
media from 1300-present.
Oil Painting
History, styles and development.
WHAT IS ART?
For an explanation of the
aesthetic issues surrounding
the creative visual arts, see:
Art Definition, Meaning
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Early Career
Ingres early career was not particularly smooth. In 1808 his painting
Oedipus and the Spinx was criticised as being flat and shadowless.
He often borrowed from the idiom of Greek art,
adopting a historical style which led his critics to charge him with plundering
the past. Alienated by this, he spent the next few years in Italy as the
Director of the French Academy in Rome. He continued to study and paint
in Rome, every year sending paintings back to the Paris for judgment.
He had hoped to demonstrate his growing expertise in human figure
drawing with his paintings the Oedipus and the Sphinx and The
Valpincon Bather - but both were badly received. Again in 1811, his
painting Jupiter and Thetis was again harshly criticised in Paris.
Only Eugene Delacroix, and
other figures in the Romantic Movement supported his work - ironically,
Ingres spent most of his life denying any affiliation or respect for the
movement. In 1813 he married Madeleine Chapelle, who had come recommended
to him by friends. Their courtship was by letter and he only met her after
their engagement was announced. She was to be a constant support to him
for the next few years as his work continued to attract criticism.
In 1819 he sent his painting La Grande
Odalisque to the Salon. The subject, a concubine lying with her back
to the viewer was influenced by Titian's Venus of Urbino. The elongated
proportions of the nude and erotic smooth skin are reminiscent of 16th
century Mannerist painters. Contemporary critics complained that the back
had been elongated by at least two vertebrae and that the painting was
eccentric and bizarre. Modern critics claim the way Ingres managed to
fuse realism with distortion was one of his gifts, which - along with
his subtle colour palette - made
his paintings appear more alive and thrilling, rather than dead and academic.
In 1815 Ingres painted Aretino and Tintoretto - the painting showed
Tintoretto brandishing a pistol at his critic, which much have provided
much satisfaction to the painter.
Success
In 1820 Ingres and his wife moved to Florence. He painted many commissions
during this time, and it was his painting The Vow of Louis XIII,
exhibited at the Salon in 1824 that finally gave him the public acclaim
he craved. He found himself celebrated throughout France and was awarded
the Legion of Honour in 1825. His work La Grande Odalisque, which
was scorned by critics and artists alike only a few years before, was
now suddenly widely popular. He became known for his pro-classical, anti-romantic
values - a reputation he relished. In 1841 he returned to Paris and received
the sort of deferential attention he felt he deserved. One of his first
works was a portrait of the Duc d'Orleans, whose death only a few weeks
after completion of the painting sent the nation into mourning and resulted
in several requests for copies of the portrait.
Later Life
Although he could paint quickly, Ingres often laboured years over a painting
- sometimes returning to a canvas after a gap of several years. He became
best known for his portrait art,
although he complained it robbed him of the time he could spend on historical
subjects. He often dined with his subjects in order to catch them off
guard, when they were most relaxed he was most likely to glimpse something
of their essence. His portrait of Monsieur Bertin (1832) and Comtesse
d'Haussonville (1845) were praised as ideal reconstructions of individuals.
In the last 10 years of his life Ingres
produced some of his most important works including the famous Turkish
Bath (1862) showing nude women in a harem. Only a year later Manet
exhibited his notorious Olympia - which shocked society by placing
nudes next to dressed gentlemen. Ingres was more acceptable because it
was obviously set in an exotic fantasy world. Ingres died of pneumonia
in 1867 at the age of 86. The entire contents of his studio, including
many major paintings and over 4000 drawings are now housed in the Musee
Ingres, Montauban.
One of the greatest neoclassical
artists, Ingres' influence on later artists, including Degas, Picasso
and Matisse was considerable. Although Ingres was highly respectful of
the past and classical principles, modern critics say his paintings incorporate
the body of a romantic spirit. His experiment with distortions of form
and space made him an important precursor to modern movements.
Important Works
Major paintings by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres can be seen in many of
the best art museums throughout the world,
particularly the Musee du Louvre in
Paris.
- Portrait of Napoleon (1806) Louvre.
- La Valpincon Bather (1808) Louvre.
- La Grande Odalisque (1814) Louvre.
- The Apotheosis of Homer (1827) Louvre.
- The Small Bather (1828) Louvre.
- Antiochus and Stratonice (1840).
- Odalisque and Slave (1842) Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore.
- Portrait of Countess D'Haussonville (1845) Frick Collection, New York.
- Odysseus. Study for Triumph of Homer (1850) Musee des Beaux-Arts, Lyon.
- Portrait of Princess De Broglie (1853) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York.
- Joan of Arc: Coronation of Charles VII in Cathedral of Reims (1854),
Louvre.
- Turkish Bath (1862-3) Louvre.
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