Charles-Louis Clérisseau

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Ruins of a Roman room, gouache by Charles-Louis Clérisseau

Charles-Louis Clérisseau (* 1722 in Paris , † January 19, 1820 in Auteuil ) was a French draftsman, painter and architect. He is one of the pioneers of classicism in England and the rest of Europe.

biography

Education and early travel

Clérisseau studied architecture with Germain Boffrand at the Académie royale d'architecture in Paris and won the Prix ​​de Rome in 1746 , but was only able to go to Rome in 1749 to continue his education there. Through the sale of drawings to British grand tourists , he met Robert Adam in 1755 , whom he taught drawing. With him, who stayed in Italy until 1757, he started an updated new edition of the Edifices Antiques de Rome by Antoine Desgodetz , which, however, was never completed. Instead, he accompanied Robert Adam on a journey along the Adriatic coast, on which u. a. extensive measurements and drawings of Diocletian's Palace in Split were made. The leading role that Clérisseau must have played in this was largely concealed by Robert Adam when he published the Ruins of the palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia (London 1764).

When Robert's younger brother James Adam came to Italy in 1760 , Clérisseau also taught him to draw and accompanied him on his travels. When James Adam returned to Scotland, Clérisseau stayed in Rome, where he continued to make numerous drawings for tourists, introduce foreign visitors to ancient Rome and teach them drawing. One of his most important students of this time was Friedrich Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorff on his second trip to Rome in 1765/66, who founded classicist architecture in Germany. Letters received from Johann Joachim Winckelmann attest to his appreciation for Clérisseau's archaeological work. On December 1, 1763, Clérisseau married Therèse L'Estache, the daughter of a former director of the French Academy in Rome.

Tour Magne in Nîmes , after an etching by Charles-Louis Clérisseau

South France

In the summer of 1767, Clérisseau went to the south of France to record the Roman ruins there and prepare for their publication. In the absence of funding, however, only the first volume of the Antiquités de la France appeared , which included the Monumens de Nismes (Paris 1778, 2nd edition 1804), a. a. with the Maison Carrée . Further volumes should apparently contain the triumphal arches in Orange and St. Rémy de Provence .

Paris and England

In 1768 Clérisseau returned to Paris, where he was accepted as an architectural painter in the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture on September 2, 1768 . However, it initially met with little response, so that he went to England in 1771 and initially joined the Adam brothers' studio. Since several Italian draftsmen trained by Clérisseau were already working there, it is difficult to determine his contribution to the work of the Adams. 1772–1774 he independently carried out several designs for Lord Shelbourne. Several times he exhibited ancient vedutas in the Society of Artists , where his work was well received.

Clérisseau returned to Paris in 1773. With the designs for rooms in two houses for Laurent Grimod de la Reynière (1737–1790) he introduced the Pompeian style in France.

Works for Tsarina Catherine II.

At the end of 1773 he was commissioned by Tsarina Catherine II to design a house in the antique style for the park of Tsarskoye Selo . Instead, he put forward the plan for a huge palace based on the Villa Adriana and the Baths of Diocletian , which the Tsarina rejected because of its excessive size. Nevertheless, in 1779 she bought a bundle of more than 1,100 drawings from Clérisseau, who regularly sent her further drawings until 1787. With around 2000 drawings, the Hermitage (Saint Petersburg) in St. Petersburg has the largest collection of works by this artist. In 1781 the Tsarina Clérisseau commissioned the design of a triumphal arch that Charles Cameron was to carry out. This too turned out to be too big and complex to be built; however, it served Giacomo Quarenghi as a model for a smaller bow built in St. Petersburg in 1814. In addition, the Tsarina first made Clérisseau an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts and later awarded him the title of Premier Architecte de Sa Majesté Impériale .

More work

While Thomas Jefferson was serving as US ambassador to France in 1785, he was advised by Clérisseau on plans for the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond , which were heavily based on the Maison Carrée.

In 1778 Clérisseau designed the monumental Palais du Gouverneur in Metz . In 1792, Goethe asked him for a design for the large hall in the Weimar City Palace , but it was never carried out.

After he had stopped working in the mid-1790s, Napoleon awarded him an annual pension from 1804. Louis XVIII appointed him Knight of the Legion of Honor .

meaning

Aside from his documentary work, Clérisseau limited himself as a draftsman and painter to vedutas of ancient ruins, both real and often fictitious buildings. In all of his work, he did not want to limit himself to repeating ancient monuments, but rather to create something new in the spirit of antiquity . In the opinion of his contemporaries, he has largely succeeded in doing this. Through his students, especially the brothers Adam and v. Erdmannsdorff, Clérisseau is one of the fathers of classicist architecture in England and on the continent.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Friedrich Noack : Clérisseau, Charles Louis . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 23 : Leitenstorfer – Mander . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1929, p. 91-92 .
  2. ^ Clérisseau (Charles-Louis) . In: L'Univers: histoire et description de tous les peuples… F. Didot fréres, 1841 ( books.google.de ).
personal data
SURNAME Clérisseau, Charles-Louis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French architect
DATE OF BIRTH 1722
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH January 19, 1820
Place of death Auteuil