Jean Auguste Dominique Ingresfrench artistJean Auguste Dominique Ingreswas bornAugust 29, 1780in the south of France in the ancient city of Montauban.
Father - Joseph Ingres, engaged in painting, engraving, music. Moreover, according to the grateful son, who had already gained recognition by that time, if Ingres Sr. had the opportunities that he provided to his offspring, he would become the greatest artist of our time. One of the most vivid memories of Dominique Ingres about his own childhood is the red chalk, which he learned to draw under the guidance of his father. And on the shoulders of the mother, nee Anna Mule, lay down all the other worries about three children.
The father decided to try out all the options available and taught his son how to draw, sing and play the violin at the same time. It quickly became clear that a pencil and a brush obey the boy best of all. Although Dominique Ingres retained his love for music throughout his life, the expression "Ingres's violin" has become a household word. So they talked about the small weakness of a big man. Ingres was friends with many musicians and composers, Liszt described his playing as "cute" - this hobby was clearly not his forte.
Franz Liszt
From 11 to 16 years old, young Ingres studied the basics of painting at the School of Fine Arts in Toulouse. There, for the first time, his interest in antiquity also manifested itself. To the famous David, Ingres entered the Paris Academy of Fine Arts at the age of 17 and immediately became one of the strongest students. He was not distinguished by sociability, but he was distinguished by perseverance. On the course he was given the nickname "hermit". David noticed the industriousness and considerable talent of the young man, and nominated the student for the Great Rome Prize, the main reward of which is a four-year paid internship in Rome. On the second attempt, in 1801 Ingresfor the painting Ambassadors of Agamemnon to Achillesreceived this award. Alas, the treasury ran out of money in the Napoleonic wars, and the government could not afford such expenses. As compensation, the artist received a workshop for his use, in which he continued to work on copies of the great ones and won public recognition with his portraits.
From 1802, Ingres began to exhibit at the Salon. He is ordered to Portrait of Bonaparte - First Consul (1804), and the artist makes a sketch from nature during a short session, finishing the work without a model.This is followed by a new order: Portrait of Napoleon on the imperial throne.
"Napoleon on the imperial throne"Portrait of Madame Devaucay, 1807
Ingres treated beauty with reverence, perceiving it as a rare gift. The beautiful forms of the human body are a constant source of inspiration for the artist.
A hymn to female beauty is perceived by the captivating classical clarity of forms and lines "The Big Bather" (Valpinson's Bather); full of elegant grace and royalty Big odalisque.
"Walpinson's bather". 1808
There is a legend about how in 1837 Ingres' endurance and peace of mind during an outbreak of cholera saved his students. One of the students fell ill and died, the rest panicked, rushed to pack their things to run - as if at that time there were ways to escape from such a scourge. Ingres locked all the doors and forbade anyone to leave the walls of the Medici villa. For several weeks, students and teachers did not leave the building, studied hard, arranged musical performances in the evenings, and sometimes Ingres read aloud Plutarch ... So the epidemic bypassed the Academy.
"Virgil Reading the Aeneid"
"Happy is he who could know the causes of things and put under his feet all the fears, and the inexorable fate, and the sound of the waves of the greedy Acheront."
Virgil
"Paolo and Francesca"Ingres was ambitious, always dreamed of recognition and was very painful for criticism: after many years he could reproduce an abusive review addressed to himself and prick his opponent in response.
"Natural impressionability and boundless desire for fame haunt me", he himself admitted.
Subsequently, art historians agreed that Ingres as a portrait painter is one of the strongest sides of his talent. He himself considered portraits to be hack work, a handicraft way to earn money. Ingres took his works on ancient and historical subjects seriously.
"The Composer Cherubini with the Muse of Lyric Poetry". 1842
A talented student of David, Ingres quickly moved away from his principles. At the top of the personal Olympus Ingres, there was a place only for the main idol - Raphael. He was generally convinced that Raphael was the best thing that happened in the whole world of painting, and after him the history of art turned "somewhere in the wrong direction." Ingres saw his task in returning to Raphael and going from him in the right direction, continuing and developing his traditions. But Ingres could not stand Rubens, declaring that his painting to him "disgusting and hostile, like a ray of light, gloomy darkness".
"Portrait of Madame Moitessier". 1856
Speaking of Ingres, Delacroix is remembered. The confrontation of these titans - the confrontation of classicism and romanticism created tension in which French painting of those years developed. Antique motifs and plots, renaissance frescoes, worship of Raphael, the finest drawing, adherence to Ingres's classicism opposed the passion, sophisticated mastery of color and the romantic doctrine of Delacroix. The rivalry was balanced, perhaps, by their equally great talent.
Ingres was called the last stronghold of the classical school, but it was clearly underestimated. Because the Impressionists, who, among other things, this "stronghold" was called upon to resist, were admired by Ingres. His influence was recognized by the Fauvists led by Matisse, the Cubists led by Picasso. And all theythese academism was not revered. So Ingres is much more than a classical tradition.
Self portrait at the age of 79 by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
Also: Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780 - 1867)
Original entry and comments on
French painting of the XVIII-XIX centuries.
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JEAN-AUGUST-DOMINIC INGR (1780-1867)
Many outstanding artists came out of David's workshop, but the largest among them was Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. His art is so significant that it is wrong to consider it within the framework of the school of David. Ingres is undoubtedly one of the great artists of the 19th century, but also one of the most paradoxical, striking in his inconsistency and at the same time invariably preserving his individuality.
His art was evaluated differently by his contemporaries and subsequent generations. For a long time there were disputes with which of the phenomena of French artistic culture Ingres should be associated, his works were shown at various thematic exhibitions in the second half of the 20th century - classicism, romanticism and even realism. For Ingres is one of those masters who do not fit into the sometimes shaky typological headings established by art historians.
In the studio of David, Ingres was imbued with admiration for the classical ideal. Ingres proclaimed loyalty to the classicist doctrine throughout his life, calling himself its faithful keeper, and not an innovator. Ingres argued: "Nothing significant can be discovered in art after Phidias and Raphael." At the same time, Ingres always carefully studied nature - evidence of this is his beautiful drawings. But he believed that, taking her as a model, her sublime appearance should be conveyed. Deformity is an accident, and not at all the main part of living nature. “Art should only be beautiful and should teach us only beauty” - this is the motto of Ingres, he remained faithful to him all his life.
At the same time, in search of an ideal, he did not always follow the classicist dogmas, which he himself proclaimed. And in his best works, he demonstrated just deviations from these dogmas and a daring interpretation not only of classical examples, but also of nature highly revered by him. Most of these works belong to the early period of his work.
In "Self-Portrait at the Easel", the chased form - a figure conveyed by a large, monolithic mass - is combined with a captivating expression of the gaze turned towards the viewer. According to Ingres, in every portrait the first thing to do is to make the eyes speak. This self-portrait, with its striking intensity of recreating the tense inner life of models, is often compared to images of romantic literature. On the other hand, in the portraits of the Riviere spouses, Ingres appears as a brilliant secular portrait painter, developing the type of Davidic portraits, but with great attention to the details of the costume and accessories, which make up an exquisite decorative entourage in the portrait of Madame Rivière, thanks to
which the banal model acquires a peculiar charm.
And the portrait of their young daughter Carolina Riviere is completely different. Ingres considered it his masterpiece. The fragile figure of a girl in a white dress, with a white boa, against the backdrop of a spring landscape is an image of rare grace and the finest lyricism. "French Gioconda" Jean Cassou called her, and this does not seem like a gross exaggeration, the harmony of man and the vast world is so perfect and integral in the picture.
Ceremonial portraits of Napoleon were also painted by other artists. But in none of them was such a measure of transformation of a real person into an object of worship achieved. This portrait was also compared with Olympian Zeus, their God Father van Eyck (Ingres could see the Ghent altar, which at one time was in Paris). Sovereign grandeur is combined in it with an almost magical intensity of a fixed gaze, directed from the height of the throne at mere mortals. The image in its Byzantine splendor and stiffness.
Portrait of Napoleon on the throne. 1806
Ingres considered drawing “the highest honesty of art”: “Drawing does not mean just making contours; A drawing is not just lines. Drawing is also expressiveness, inner form, plan, modeling... Drawing contains more than three-quarters of what painting is.”
This linear-planar style finds expression in the paintings "Oedipus and the Sphinx" and "Jupiter and Thetis". Nereid Thetis pleads with Jupiter to intercede for her son Achilles. Deceptive at first glance, adherence to classicist techniques - the frontality of the composition, the strict writing out of the details - turns into an arbitrariness of the compositional solution: the irrationality of the spatial construction with the throne floating in the sky, the large-scale discrepancy between the powerful figure of Jupiter and Thetis clinging to him, and most importantly - a daring deviation from anatomical accuracy. The smooth, as if flowing forms of the Nereid figure, so flexible that they seem boneless, especially the arms, an exorbitantly elongated neck, a strangely thrown back head - all this determines its captivating grace and special expression in contrast with the courageous and severe impassivity of Jupiter Thetis is perceived as a plastic embodiment prayers and tenderness. Surprisingly solid and perfect in linear rhythm, this painting is also one of Ingres's most beautiful in color works. The intense blue sky with swirling white clouds, the pinkish-orange cloak of Jupiter, the yellowish-greenish drapery of Thetis combine into an expressive triad that interprets traditional color relationships in a peculiar way.
The picture provoked criticism from the orthodox adherents of the classicist school, and later such works by Ingres were highly appreciated by young romantics.
Oedipus and the Sphinx 1808 Jupiter and Thetis. 1811 Dream of Ossian. 1813
The closeness to romanticism is especially evident in the composition "Ossian's Dream", which recreates the transcendental world of Elysium and the ghostly figures of muses, heroes and nymphs illuminated by a mysterious light. This is perhaps the most fantastic and bewitchingly attractive painting by Ingres, demonstrating the freedom of romantic vision.
For example, "Roger and Angelica", "Paolo and Francesca", in which the influence of "primitives" is obvious. Like similar works by other artists, they are often defined by the concept of "troubadour style", representing a certain, although not dominant, trend in French romanticism.
Roger and Angelica. 1819 Paolo and Francesca. OK. 1819
In Italy, Ingres also created some, perhaps the most perfect, nude images. Ingres achieved in the painting "The Bather of Valpinson" the harmony of the living perception of nature. A confident soft contour embraces the figure, depicted from the back, as if with one continuous movement of the brush. It is modeled by subtle relationships of gliding light and light shadows, giving rise to an almost imperceptible sense of volume. The color relationships are restrained and simple: a yellowish body, a greenish curtain on the left, a white drapery covering the seat, a gray background. And only the pattern of the headband brings a delicate colorful accent to this strict range.
The "Great Odalisque" was initially sharply criticized, and later became one of the artist's most famous works. This reclining female figure in an oriental turban, with a fan of peacock feathers, is not as natural and unconstrained as the “Bather of Valpinson”. But it is impossible not to appreciate the charm of this slender body, the melodiousness of its lines, the grace and elegance of forms. At the same time, Ingres was not afraid to make anatomical distortions: critics counted two extra vertebrae in the elongated flexible back of the odalisque.
Bather Valpinson. 1808 Large odalisque. 1814
In Italy, until 1824, beautiful portraits, pictorial and graphic, were created. Ingres developed a special technique in his drawings. With a pencil, he conveyed the figure, in a single continuous line, with almost no modeling, but paying more or less attention to costumes and accessories. However, the main thing was always the face, as a rule, worked out in more detail (“Portrait of Madame Detouche”, “Portrait of Paganini”). Ingres knew how to stop in time and not violate the transparent lightness of the graphic form, which he could subdue even bulky men's suits or women's outfits overloaded with details.
Of course, this applies not only to portraits, but perhaps even more so to the drawings of nudes, which Ingres could convey in a single contour, often without lifting the pencil from the paper, with unmistakable confidence and quivering feeling, “When building a figure, do not create piece by piece, he taught. - Coordinate everything at the same time and draw an ensemble. In these captivating drawings, flexible, flowing lines are folded into impeccably balanced shapes.
Portrait of Madame Detouche. 1816. Portrait of Paganini. 1819
In Italy, Ingres made beautiful portraits of women: a noble and restrained in color, slightly aloof in expression, a portrait of Madame Devose, a portrait of Madame de Senonne, more complex in composition and elegant in color. Among the portraits of fellow artists who lived in Rome, many combine the severity of the plastic form with the intensity of the inner life. Even in the portrait of the arrogantly dispassionate Russian diplomat Count N. D. Guryev, Ingres brings a touch of romantic excitement due to the expressive landscape background with an alarming stormy sky.
Portrait of Madame Devose. 1807 portrait of Madame de Senonne. 1814 Portrait of Count N. D. Guriev. 1821
In 1820 he received a commission for a large altarpiece for the cathedral at Montauban, The Vow of Louis XIII. In it, he returned to the classicist tradition, as if forgetting about his former original and bold creative aspirations. The compositional construction of the painting, the image of the Madonna and Child, appearing in the clouds to the kneeling Louis XIII, the figures of angels - everything was decided, as the artist himself said, "in Raphael's and my spirit." But in this lifeless stylistic reconstruction, Ingres' creative originality was completely leveled by the influence of his idol. As for the image of Louis XIII, the portrait of Philippe de Champaigne served as its prototype. The result is an utterly eclectic, albeit masterfully executed, piece.
Fortunately, the works, solved in the classic plan, to which Ingres attached special importance, did not exhaust his creative aspirations. He continued to paint magnificent images of the nude, which became classics in the highest sense of the word. These are the "Venus of Anadyomene" and the "Source". Unlike the early “Valpinson’s Bather”, Ingres wrote them for a long time, for many years, stubbornly striving for an ideal that he himself sometimes seemed unattainable.
Venus Anadyomene. 1848Source . 1856
A kind of generalization of work in this genre was the composition "Golden Age" (unfinished painting in the Dampier castle). Beautiful nude figures against the backdrop of an ideal landscape - the altarpiece of the cult of antiquity. Ingres expressed in it the eternal dream of a happy harmony of ideal people and beautiful nature, for the expression of which he did not find motives in his era.
One of the most amazing interpretations of the nudity motif belongs to the last years of Ingres' life - the painting "Turkish Bath" - a complex arabesque of naked bodies, enclosed in the form of a tondo. In it again, more than half a century later, the Bather of Valpinson appears against the background of rounded intertwining figures, filled with languid thoughtfulness or sensual bliss.
Golden age. Unfinished painting in the Dampier castle. 1843-1847 Turkish bath. 1863
In the portraits, Ingres brilliantly expressed the changing face of the era. The difference between male and female portraits: in the first, the character of the model is more expressed, in the female - the search for the beauty of a linear-plastic structure and color.
The portrait of Bertin Sr. is one of the most famous in the art of the 19th century. Ingres achieved in him not just a striking portrait resemblance, the image of an energetic and self-confident magnate of the French press is perceived as "an expression of an entire era", as "the Buddha of the triumphant, rich, jaded bourgeoisie."
The epoch is just as eloquently expressed in the portrait of Ines Moitessier. This majestic beauty, which contemporaries compared with Juno, Ingres painted painfully long, meticulously choosing and changing her outfit and jewelry. In the final version, she is depicted sitting in a pose close to that of an Arcadian goddess. The figure is reflected in the mirror, where her bare shoulders and classic profile are clearly visible. A puffy Lyon silk dress with a floral pattern, emphasizing her mature, somewhat ponderous beauty, an abundance of jewelry - everything expresses the taste of the time, with its predilection for decorative richness.
Portrait of Ines Muatesier. 1856 Portrait of Bertin Sr. 1832
In his later years, Ingres was financially independent and could choose his models. In the drawings, these are most often his relatives or friends. Magnificent examples of late graphic portraits of Ingres can serve as his self-portrait, which is distinguished by its particular delicacy and softness of manner, or the portrait of Delphine Ingres, the second wife of the artist.
Self-portrait. 1835 portrait of Delphine Ingres. 1852
In the later period, many of his works did not correspond to academic doctrine, in particular a narrow, unexpected and peculiar manifestation of Orientalism, like the painting "Odalisque and Slave".
Odalisque and slave. 1839
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (fr. Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres; 1780-1867) - French artist, painter and graphic artist, the generally recognized leader of European academicism of the 19th century. He received both artistic and musical education, in 1797-1801 he studied in the workshop of Jacques-Louis David. In 1806-1824 and 1835-1841 he lived and worked in Italy, mainly in Rome and Florence (1820-1824). Director of the School of Fine Arts in Paris (1834-1835) and the French Academy in Rome (1835-1840). In his youth, he studied music professionally, played in the orchestra of the Toulouse Opera (1793-1796), and later communicated with Niccolò Paganini, Luigi Cherubini, Charles Gounod, Hector Berlioz and Franz Liszt.
Creativity Ingres is divided into a number of stages. As an artist, he formed very early, and already in the studio of David, his stylistic and theoretical research came into conflict with the doctrines of his teacher: Ingres was interested in the art of the Middle Ages and Quattrocento. In Rome, Ingres was influenced by the style of the Nazarenes, his own development shows a number of experiments, compositional solutions and plots closer to romanticism. In the 1820s, he experienced a serious creative turning point, after which he began to use almost exclusively traditional formal devices and plots, although not always consistently. Ingres defined his work as "the preservation of true doctrines, not innovation", but aesthetically he constantly went beyond neoclassicism, which was expressed in his break with the Paris Salon in 1834. The declared aesthetic ideal of Ingres was opposed to the romantic ideal of Delacroix, which led to a stubborn and sharp controversy with the latter. With rare exceptions, Ingres' works are devoted to mythological and literary themes, as well as the history of antiquity, interpreted in an epic spirit. He is also rated as the largest representative of historicism in European painting, stating that the development of painting reached its peak under Raphael, then went in the wrong direction, and his mission, Ingres, is to continue from the same level that was reached in the Renaissance. The art of Ingres is integral in style, but very heterogeneous typologically, and therefore was evaluated differently by contemporaries and descendants. In the second half of the 20th century, Ingres' works were exhibited at thematic expositions of classicism, romanticism and even realism.
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres was born on August 29, 1780 in Montauban in southwestern France. He was the first child of Jean-Marie-Joseph Ingres (1755-1814) and Anne Moulet (1758-1817). The father was originally from Toulouse, but settled in the patriarchal Montauban, where he excelled as a universal artist who took on paintings, sculpture and architecture, and was also known as a violinist. Later, Ingres Sr. was elected a member of the Toulouse Academy. He probably wanted his son to follow in his footsteps, especially since Jean Auguste showed early talent as an artist and began to copy his father's works and those works of art that were in the home collection. Jean Auguste received his first music and drawing lessons at home and was then sent to a school in Montauban (Fr. École des Frères de l "Éducation Chrétienne), where he was able to realize himself as an artist and violinist at a very early age.
In 1791, the father decided that his son needed a more fundamental education, and sent him to study at the Toulouse Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (fr. Académie Royale de Peinture, Sculpture et Architecture), which, due to the vicissitudes of the revolution, lost the status of "Royal" . Ingres spent six years in Toulouse - until 1797, and his mentors were famous artists of that time: Guillaume-Joseph Roque, sculptor Jean-Pierre Vigan and landscape painter Jean Briand. Rock at one time made a retirement trip to Rome, during which he met Jacques-Louis David. Ingres excelled in painting and received several awards during his years of study, and also studied art history well. At the competition of young artists in 1797 in Toulouse, Ingres won the first prize for drawing from life, and Guillaume Roque inspired him that it is important for a successful artist to be a good observer and portrait painter, able to faithfully reproduce nature. At the same time, Rock bowed to the art of Raphael and instilled in Ingres respect for him for life. Jean Auguste began to paint portraits, mainly to earn money, signing his work "Ingres-son" (fr. Ingres-fils). He did not leave music lessons under the guidance of the famous violinist Lezhan. In 1793-1796 he performed as second violin in the orchestra of the Toulouse Capitole (fr. Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse) - the opera house.
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Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres. Biography and pictures.
Ingres Jean Auguste Dominique (Ingres Jean) (1780-1867), French painter and draftsman.
From 1796 he studied with Jacques Louis David in Paris. in 1806-1824 he worked in Italy, where he studied the art of the Renaissance and especially the work of Raphael; in 1834-1841 he was director of the French Academy in Rome.
Ingres painted on literary, mythological, historical subjects.
(“Jupiter and Thetis”, 1811, Granet Museum, Aix-en-Provence;
“Vow of Louis XIII”, 1824, Cathedral in Montauban;
“The Apotheosis of Homer”, 1827, Louvre, Paris), portraits that are distinguished by the accuracy of observations and the utmost truthfulness of psychological characteristics
portrait of L.F. Bertin, 1832, Louvre, Paris,
idealized and at the same time full of a keen sense of the real beauty of the nude
"Bather Volpenson", 1808,
"Great odalisque", 1814,
Both are in the Louvre, Paris.
Ingres's works, especially early ones, are marked by classical harmony of composition, a subtle sense of color, and the harmony of a clear, light color, but the main role in his work was played by a flexible, plastically expressive linear drawing. Ingres is the author of brilliant pencil portraits and natural studies (most of them are in the Ingres Museum in Montauban).
Ingres himself considered himself a historical painter, a follower of David. However, in his programmatic mythological and historical compositions, Ingres deviated from the requirements of the teacher, introducing more lively observations of nature, religious feelings, expanding the subject matter, turning, in particular, like the romantics, to the era of antiquity and the Middle Ages (“Vow of Louis XIII”, 1824, Montauban Cathedral , “The Apotheosis of Homer”, 1827, Paris, Louvre).
If Ingres historical painting seems traditional, then his magnificent portraits and sketches from nature are a valuable part of the French artistic culture of the 19th century.
One of the first Ingres was able to feel and convey not only the peculiar appearance of many people of that time, but also the traits of their characters - selfish calculation, callousness, prosaic personality in some, and kindness and spirituality in others.
Chased form, impeccable drawing, beauty of silhouettes determine the style of Ingres' portraits. Accuracy of observation allows the artist to convey the manner of holding and the specific gesture of each person.
portrait of Philibert Riviera, 1805;
portrait of Madame Riviere, 1805,
both paintings - Paris, Louvre;
Madame Devose, 1807, Chantilly, Condé Museum).
Ingres himself did not consider the portrait genre worthy of a real artist, although it was in the field of portrait that he created his most significant works. With careful observation of nature and admiration for its perfect forms, the artist’s luck is associated with the creation of a number of poetic female images in the paintings “Great Odalisque” (1814, Paris, Louvre),
"Source" (1820-1856, Paris, Louvre);
in the last painting, Ingres sought to embody the ideal of "eternal beauty".
Having finished this work begun in his early years in old age, Ingres confirmed his loyalty to youthful aspirations and his preserved sense of beauty. If for Ingres the appeal to antiquity consisted primarily of admiration for the ideal perfection of strength and the purity of the images of high Greek classics, then numerous representatives of official art who considered themselves his followers flooded the Salons (exhibition halls) with “odalisques” and “frips”, using antiquity only as a pretext for images of a naked female body.
The later work of Ingres, with the cold abstraction of images characteristic of this period, had a significant impact on the development of academicism in French art of the 19th century.
Ambassadors of Agamemnon in the tent of Achilles, 1801, Louvre, Paris
Self-portrait 1804
Portrait of Bonaparte 1804
Portrait of Philibert's Daughter Rivière 1805
Ingres. Napoleon on the imperial throne. 1806
Venus Anadyomene 1808-1848
Romulus - Conqueror of Akron 1812
. Dream of Ossian 1813.
Ingres. Joseph Woodhead with his wife and brother-in-law. 1816
Leonardo dying in the arms of Francis I 1818
Ingres. Niccolo Paganini. 1819 graphite
Roger freeing Angelique, 1819.
Christ delivering St. Peter the Keys to Paradise (1820)
Portrait of Madame Leblanc 1823.
Oedipus and the Sphinx 1827, Louvre, Paris
Ingres. Odalisque and slave. 1840
Ingres. Tsarevich Antiochus and Stratonika. 1840
The Virgin of the Host". 1841.
Ingres. Vicomtesse d'Haussonville. 1845
"Jupiter and Antiope". 1851.
Ingres is one of the leading masters of the classical direction in France. The artist came from among the intelligentsia of Toulouse. He studied at the Toulouse Academy of Fine Arts. At the age of 17, Ingres ended up in revolutionary Paris, in David's atelier. Having mastered the classic system with its cult of antiquity, Ingres deliberately abandoned the revolutionary nature of David's classicism, denying modernity and expressing with his work the only desire - to escape life into the world of the ideal. Admiration for antiquity grew in Ingres into an almost blind admiration for it. Wanting to gain complete independence from his time, he turns only to the past.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Ingres left for Italy, where he painted a lot of the architecture of the Eternal City, and in one of the small tondos (circle), made in oil, depicted Raphael's house. This great Italian artist was an idol all his life, a role model for Ingres.
In Rome, the artist creates one of the best portraits of his friend - the artist Francois Marius Granet. In terms of mood, the portrait portends a new attitude of the romantics. A certain departure from the usual classicism, a foreshadowing of the romantic trend was the appearance in the works of Ingres of such an exotic motif as odalisques with their oriental attributes: turban, fan, chibouk, etc.
In the portraits of women, Ingres becomes overly fond of the entourage, accessories, various textures of objects: silk, velvet, lace, wallpaper damask. All this creates a complex ornamental pattern.
In the thematic paintings of the 10s, Ingres remains true to classicism - he takes themes from mythology, from the history of ancient times.
Developing the traditions of the French pencil portrait, Ingres creates "Portrait of Paganini", group portraits of the French consul Stamati, female pencil images, etc.
But his main work during this period is the altarpiece for the church of his native city of Montabana, called "The Vow of Louis XIII, asking for the patronage of the Madonna for the French kingdom." It was this creation that brought success to the artist, from now on he becomes the recognized head of the official French school.
In 1824, Ingres returned to his homeland after an 18-year absence, was elected an academician, awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor, opened his studio, and from now on remains the leader of the official academic direction until the end of his days. Ingres was always far from politics and did not take part in the events of 1830.
The last years of the master, universally recognized and revered by all, are overshadowed by his fiercest battles, first with the romantics, led by Delacroix, then with the realists, who were represented by Courbet. Ingres works a lot in these advanced years, without losing his creative activity.
Ingres died when the realism of unvarnished reality had long flourished in France.
