Claude Joseph Vernet

Portrait of Vernet, painted by Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun , 1778

Claude Joseph Vernet [veʀˈnɛ] , (born August 14, 1714 in Avignon , † December 3, 1789 in Paris ) was a French painter who was particularly famous for his views of French ports .

Life

Claude Joseph Vernet was the son of the decorative painter Antoine Vernet, from whom he also received his first artistic lessons. Through his father's mediation, Vernet later became a student of the painter Louis René de Vialy in Aix-en-Provence . There the Marquis de Caudon, Joseph de Seytres, noticed him and supported him with a generous scholarship. This enabled Vernet to go to Rome in 1734 at the age of twenty and study with the marine painters Bernardino Fergioni and Adrien Maglard for a while. In 1743 Vernet became a full member of the Accademia di San Luca .

Two years later, in Rome, Vernet married Virginia Parker, an Englishwoman, the daughter of a captain in the papal navy. Through the mediation of the Marquis de Marigny , the director of the Bâtiments du Roi , the French King Louis XV. Vernet to the French court in 1753. Vernet was supposed to paint the most important ports of France and with these 24 views represent "the sea power France". Vernet became a member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in Paris and worked almost exclusively on the royal commission. By 1763 he had completed 15 paintings. In that year he settled in Paris and again created works for other members of the French nobility.

Vernet's daughter Marguerite Émilie married the architect Jean-François Chalgrin . His son Antoine Charles Horace Vernet and his grandson Horace Vernet were also painters. He was a member of the Parisian Masonic Lodge Les Neufs Sœurs . The painter Claude Joseph Vernet died on December 3, 1789 in Paris at the age of almost 75.

plant

The large-format views of all French military and commercial ports were created according to a precisely specified itinerary as the topography of the kingdom, with the important ports being represented by two or three different views. Marigny saw the project as a didactic presentation and historical documentation. The aim was to show the various trading activities and the forms of shipping due to the local geography. Vernet developed a new, panorama-like representation with a low horizon and a wide sky. Numerous staffage figures that enliven the pictures are not new in themselves. However, Vernet shows the people at work, trade and capital turnover.

Vernets seascapes often have storm and shipwreck scenes as their subject. These convey the experience of the sublime , the terrifying overwhelming force of nature. In order to gain this experience himself, according to a legend, the painter had himself tied to the mast of a ship during a storm at sea.

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  Landscape with castle ruins

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  Seaside scene

Selection of works

• Shipwreck on a rocky coast, 1772, canvas, 114 × 163 cm, Washington DC (NGA)
• Women bathing in the morning , 1772, canvas, 98 × 162 cm.
• View into the park of the Villa Ludovisi in Rome , 1749, canvas, 75 × 100 cm.
• View into the park of Villa Doria Pamphilj , 1749, canvas, 74 × 98 cm.
• The port of Livorno during a storm , around 1748, canvas, 101 × 138 cm.
• The Beaucaire Fair , 1774, canvas, 97 × 112 cm.
• The paper kite , 1782, canvas, 155 × 34 cm.
• The ports of France: Bayonne I , 1760, canvas, 165 × 263 cm.
• The ports of France: Bayonne II , 1760, canvas, 165 × 263 cm.

Web links

Commons : Joseph Vernet  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Works by Claude Joseph Vernet at Zeno.org .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alexander Giese: The Freemasons. Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-205-98598-2 .
2. ↑ Levitine, George: The development of an episode within the art historical romantic folklore (Engl.), In: . In: The Art Bulletin . tape XLIX , 1967, p. 92-100 .

literature

• Florence Ingersoll-Smouse: Joseph Vernet. Peintre de marine. Étude critique et catalog raisonné. Paris 1926, 2 volumes.
• Léon Lagrange: Joseph Vernet et la peinture au XVIIe siècle. 2nd Edition. Paris 1864.
• Laurent Manœuvre, Eric Reith: Joseph Vernet: Les Ports de France. Arcueil 1994
• Helge Sieffert (Ed.): Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789). Exhibition cat., Munich 1997, DNB 950428450 .
• Claude Pétry (ed.): Vernet - La marine à voile de 1650 à 1890. Autour de Claude-Joseph Vernet. Exhibition cat. Rouen 1999, Arcueil 1999, ISBN 2-912257-09-3 .
• Jutta Held: Monument and People. Pre-revolutionary perception in images of the outgoing Ancien Régime. Böhlau, Cologne / Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-412-18589-2 .