Léonard Defrance
Léonard Defrance (born November 5, 1735 in Liège ; † February 22, 1805 there ) was a Walloon painter who, after stays in Rome and Languedoc, worked in the capital of the Principality of Liège (Liège in French, now part of Belgium ). He distinguished himself by name in the new art genre of industrial painting. At the time of the French Revolution , the “painter- enlightenment ” took part in the front line in the struggle against the rule of the clergy.
Wandering years
Léonard Defrance was the second of eleven children of the innkeeper Jean-Charles Defrance (1699-1770) and Marie-Agnès Clermont. The father, the son of a former Abbé , had wandered through Germany, Italy and France and worked in various professions. At the age of ten Defrance began an apprenticeship with the church and history painter Jean-Baptiste Coclers (1696–1772) in Liège, who had books read to himself and his students while painting.
The young man would actually have preferred to study literature , but he lacked the necessary school knowledge. In 1754 he went to Rome for further training, where Liège residents could live in a student residence for five years. The director of the Académie de France à Rome , Charles-Joseph Natoire (1700–1777), allowed him to draw from the living model and from antiquity. For some time Defrance was a student of the genre , history and portrait painter Laurent Pécheux (1729-1821) from Lyon . In 1758 he received the second prize of the Accademia di San Luca for a study of the nude . In Rome he also painted the first of nine known self-portraits . In his memoirs , written around 1800, he describes the involvement in a trial of the Roman Inquisition as the first reason for his becoming an atheist .
With the doctor Robert de Limbourg (1731–1792) Defrance traveled from Rome to Naples and in 1760 to Montpellier . There he gave drawing lessons to the officers of the garrison and, according to his own account, lived secretly with an escaped prisoner until she found a wealthier admirer. In 1761 he accepted an invitation from the local bishop to Castres . When he was in Toulouse from 1761 to 1763, he was an eyewitness to the judicial murder of the Protestant Jean Calas (1698–1762), denounced by Voltaire . The portrait of the astronomer Antoine Darquier (1718–1802) was created in the capital of Languedoc. In the catalog of his painted work it says: “The object is wonderfully suitable for using the chiaroscuro effect . This unquestionably successful picture proves that Defrance mastered the art of portraiture very early on . "
Then the painter returned to Liege. After seeing his family again, he actually wanted to move on to Paris , but his love for his cousin Marie-Jeanne Joassin held him back in his hometown. The two married in 1765. From the marriage the daughters Marie-Agnès (* 1766) and Elisabeth-Ursule (* 1772) emerged. With the Enlightenment - hostile Prince-Bishop Charles-Nicolas d'Oultremont (reign 1763-1771) but Defrance fell out of favor.
Success in the Paris market
The enlightened successor of d'Oultremont, François-Charles de Velbrück (reign 1772–1784), however, Defrance was favored. A trip to Amsterdam , which he undertook with the landscape painter Nicolas-Henri de Fassin (1728–1811) in 1773, was of great importance for his work , as it prompted him to move from portrait and decorative painting for local customers to more lucrative production to switch small-format panel pictures with interior and genre scenes for the Paris market.
In order not to lose Defrance, Velbrück initially unofficially entrusted him with the management of today's Académie royale des beaux-arts de Liège, which he founded in 1775, and provided him with commissions. From 1778–1784 Defrance was officially the first painter and director of the academy. He also taught at the Académie anglaise, which took the place of the local Jesuit college after the Society of Jesus was abolished. He frequented the enlightened circles of Liège intellectuals and took part in the art exhibitions of the Société libre d'Émulation , founded in 1779 , but also in the salons in Paris, where he often traveled.
In this creative period of the innkeeper's son painted Wirtshaus- and street scenes, which often criticize abuses, such as the representations of advertisers foreign armies, the young Liège for mercenary service persuade or charlatans , on fairs advertise miracle cures. Friends of Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806) from Rome , Defrance also tried his hand at erotic art . The Metropolitan Museum in New York has two examples of this : A ghostly illuminated scene shows a tightrope walker who is being examined with opera glasses by a gallant canon accompanied by women. In the other painting, robbers are playing in a cave for the possessions of an already half-undressed young woman. On the edge of a fish market, a fat monk looks down with contempt at a skinny worker, while a second (with a writhing eel in one hand) and a nun (with her hand on her heart) express forbidden interest in the opposite sex.
Industrial painting pioneer
Above all, Defrance is one of the pioneers of industrial painting alongside the French Louis Jean-Jacques Durameau (1733–1796), the English Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797) and the Swede Pehr Hilleström (1732–1816).
In 1778 he replied to an inquiry from an art dealer from Montpellier: “Since my departure from Paris I have not done anything that I could dispose of, as I was forced to paint night pieces for our prince, such as foundries , nailers , cutting tools etc., iron manufacture of this country. ”Velbrück hoped from such representations to get export orders for the Haine - Sambre - Maas coal belt , which was on the way to becoming the second most important industrial area in the world. In particular, he wanted to supply the United States , which was in the war of independence with Great Britain .
In addition to the above-mentioned subjects , which met Defrance's preference for chiaroscuro , this depicted emptying a conveying vessel in a coal mine, other types of blacksmiths and an arms factory, but also a tannery or a tobacco factory . In doing so, he confronted the workers - some women and children as well - with visitors from the enlightened upper class who were wearing the latest fashion. He was preceded by the son of his teacher, Louis-Bernard Coclers (1741-1817), who had already shown the interior of an iron cutter with visitors in 1771 (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Agen ).
The romanticism of Wright's smithy ( Derby Museum and Art Gallery ), which was established in the same year, is just as absent in this work as in the industrial painting of Defrance, but this too was fascinated by the aesthetic aspect of proto-industrialization . In the second version of his memoirs he writes: “What a difference (…) between the light of the forge of a farrier or locksmith and that of the blast furnace in which ore or rag is melted to cast iron into bars ! If the former is yellowish and plays into the red, the latter is milk white. It makes the incarnate of the men it illuminates as pale as that of a weak sick person. What an abundance of beautiful effects, what harmony, what softness, what fire vapor do not arise from these dazzling white light sources! ”Defrance also campaigned for the health of the workers: in 1789, he won a prize from the Académie des Sciences with a paper about color flaws and their diseases in Paris.
"Painter Enlightenment"
Four works by Defrance show an (ideal) printing shop , two each representing the typesetting shop and the printing press (s). They illustrate the inundation of the Catholic states with enlightening writings that were reprinted in France's eastern neighbors in the period before the French Revolution . One of the most important printing locations was Liège under Bishop Velbrück. One of the pairs of images, which differ from each other only in details , could have been intended for Clément Plomteux, the reprint printer who worked there, the second for his associate Jean-Edme Dufour in Maastricht, the Netherlands . Advertisements for reprints are stuck to the walls of all four paintings.
The neighboring Austrian Netherlands also received an enlightened sovereign: in 1781 Emperor Joseph II granted the Protestants freedom of belief . Defrance dedicated an allegorical composition to this historical event with a fictional bookstore called À l'Égide de Minerve (Zur Aigis der Minerva ). On the wall pasted over ads for works of the Enlightenment , the Mandatum tolerantiae with the imperial double-headed eagle and reject books bales with the inscription Rome , Naples , Spain and Portugal . Before that, a Catholic priest and a Lutheran pastor shake hands in the presence of a Reformed pastor and a Capuchin . The beehive ( Ruche ) as the house symbol of the opening business for agricultural equipment is a symbol of hard work and cooperation. While a Dominican is discussing with farmers, a seated Capuchin is flirting with the young bookseller. On the other side of the painting seems a man holding a stack of tomes used as an armchair, obsolete become theological to sell off literature. Behind it you can see a pantheon-like house of worship with the blessing of a mixed marriage and a monument to Joseph II in the pose of an ancient emperor . Passers-by gathered in front of the pedestal of the statue are allowed to read the tolerance patent posted there in the vernacular. Jean-Jacques Heirwegh described the picture as an excellent representation of a “historical moment when the politics of enlightened despotism knew how to meet the hopes of the philosophy of Enlightenment ”.
In addition to the allegory on the Edict of Tolerance, Defrance also painted those on the abolition of serfdom in the French state domains (1779) and the abolition of the contemplative orders in the hereditary lands of the House of Austria (1782). In a painting of the last-named group of works engraved by Carl Gottlieb Guttenberg , religious people leave the monasteries into which they were often put against their will. An open monastery gate is pasted with the mandatum abrogationis of Joseph II. Both a soldier recruiter and a (more discreet) young girl show favor to a young monk who steps out. At the foot of an imperial monument, other monks have their beards shorn, and an admirer and a lace trader crowd around a young nun .
revolutionary
After Velbrück's death Defrance joined the opposition to the reactionary Prince-Bishop Constantin de Hoensbroech (reign 1784–1792), from whom he was deposed as director of the academy. He is considered the author of the pamphlet Cri général du peuple liégeois (General outcry of the Liège people) , published in 1786 .
In 1789 the artist took part in the Liege Revolution , when it broke out he was in Paris. When imperial troops temporarily restored the prince-bishopric in 1791 and 1793, he fled to the French part of the Ardennes or to Paris, where his moderate views put him in danger, so that he withdrew again to the Ardennes. During the French occupation of Liège (1792/93), the revolutionaries decided to demolish the city's Gothic cathedral with its 135 meter high tower as a symbol of the hated rule of the clergy. The project was put into practice after the final occupation of the city and its annexation by France (1794/95). Defrance, who also took part in the requisition of cultural goods by the French, was in charge of the work of destruction for a time (just as the painter Courbet in 1871 dismantled the Vendôme column in Paris).
Defrance distrusted the French consulate government and the future First Consul and Emperor Bonaparte . Since he had to resign from the administrative council of the department of Ourthe , which had been created two years earlier, in 1797 , he concentrated on drawing lessons at its newly created central school. After the Concordat of 1801 between France and the Holy See , the demolition of the cathedral was considered an outrage. When Bonaparte visited Liège in 1803, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres presented him in front of the destroyed art monument. The École centrale was closed in 1804. A little later Defrance died at the age of 69. Denounced as a church attacker, he fell victim to the Damnatio memoriae for a long time during the Kulturkampf .
gallery
Soldier recruiter, 1779–1789 (private collection).
Printing presses , after 1782 (private collection).
Charlatan , ca.1784 (private collection).
Robbers share prey, ca.1786/87 (MutualArt).
Fischmarkt ( detail ), 1786–1788 (private collection).
Tobacco manufacture , 1787/88 (La Boverie, Liège).
Tobacco manufacture, 1787/88 (La Boverie, Liège).
Marble quarry , 1791 ( Musée Marmottan Monet , Paris).
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Fonts
- Cri général du peuple liégeois. Vox populi, vox Dei . Urbain, Herve 1786.
- Les broyeurs de couleurs, leur métier et leurs maladies. Mémoire sur la question proposée par l ' Académie Royale des Sciences de Paris (…) Ed. Philippe Tomsin, Céfal, Liège 2005 ( Ly Myreur des Histors 1), ISBN 2-87130-199-9 ( digitized version ).
- Autobiography d'un peintre liégeois. (First version.) Ed. Théodore Gobert. Cormaux, Liège 1906.
- Mémoires. Edition annotée. (Second version.) Ed. Françoise Dehousse, Maurice Pauchen. Eugène Wahle, Liège 1980, ISBN 2-87011-066-9 , pp. 155-160 ( bibliography ).
literature
- Françoise Dehousse, Maïté Pacco, Maurice Pauchen: Léonard Defrance. L'œuvre pains. Editions du Perron et Eugène Wahle, Liège 1985, ISBN 2-87011-099-5 .
- Daniel Droixhe: Une histoire des Lumières au pays de Liège. Livre, idées, société. Les Éditions de l ' Université de Liège , Liège 2007, ISBN 978-2-87456-036-1 , pp. 148–152, 180, 287–289, 296, 358 f.
Video
- Philo-musée: Enquête philosophique on “Petite Flagellation du Christ” by Léonard Defrance. ( Video on YouTube )
Web link
References and comments
- ^ Daniel Droixhe: Une histoire des Lumières au pays de Liège. Livre, idées, société. Les Éditions de l ' Université de Liège , Liège 2007, ISBN 978-2-87456-036-1 , p. 148.
- ^ Léonard Defrance: Mémoires. Edited by Françoise Dehousse, Maurice Pauchen. Liège 1980, pp. 46-51.
- ^ Françoise Dehousse, Maïté Pacco, Maurice Pauchen: Léonard Defrance. L'œuvre pains. Editions du Perron et Eugène Wahle, Liège 1985, ISBN 2-87011-099-5 , no.19 .
- ↑ Cf. Christine Smisdom: La société libre d'Émulation de Liège au XVIIIe siècle. In: Académies et sociétés savantes en Europe (1650–1800). Honoré Champion, Paris 2000, ISBN 978-2-74530-280-9 , pp. 265-272.
- ^ Walter A. Liedtke: Flemish Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art . Volume 1, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1984, pp. 34–41, here: pp. 38–41 ( digitized version ).
- ↑ Philippe Delaite, Jean-Paul Depaire: Académie royale des beaux-arts de Liège. Une école d'art sur quatre siècles. Éditions Du Perron, Liège 2019, ISBN 978-2-87114-261-4 , p. 30 f. The United States exported before the Revolutionary War almost exclusively food (in the Caribbean ) and imported the industrial goods from the UK .
- ↑ Philippe Tomsin: "La Houillère" de Léonard Defrance. Approche of the technology in the iconography. In: Patrimoine Industriel Wallonie-Bruxelles, 22/1992, pp. 3-19 ( digitized version ).
- ↑ Patrick Le Nouëne: Représentation d'une Fenderie du XVIIIe siècle par Louis-Bernard Coclers. In: Art & Fact (Liège), 4/1985, pp. 73–80.
- ^ Léonard Defrance: Mémoires. Edited by Françoise Dehousse, Maurice Pauchen. Liège 1980, p. 96.
- ↑ Les broyeurs de couleurs, leur métier et leurs maladies. Mémoire sur la question proposée par l'Académie Royale des Sciences de Paris (…) Ed. Philippe Tomsin, Céfal, Liège 2005 ( Ly Myreur des Histors 1), ISBN 2-87130-199-9 ( digitized version ). Pigments and siccatives contained toxic heavy metals .
- ^ Daniel Droixhe: Un tableau de Léonard Defrance perdu et retrouvé. In: Culture, le magazine culturel en ligne de l ' Université de Liège ( digitized version ).
- ^ Works by Voltaire , Buffon , Rousseau , Diderot , Raynal , Helvétius , Boulanger , Holbach , Beccaria and Mercier as well as edicts of Joseph II.
- ↑ Left: Montaigne ( Essais ), Montesquieu ( De l'esprit des lois ), Voltaire , Rousseau , theological work (pasted over); right: Condillac ( Traité des sensations ), Helvétius , d'Alembert , Welt atlas , collection of sermons (half demolished).
- ↑ Jean-Jacques Heirwegh in: Les lumières dans les Pays-Bas autrichiens et la principauté de Liège (exhibition catalog), Bibliothèque royale Albert Ier , Bruxelles 1983, pp. 161–167, quotation: p. 165; Daniel Droixhe: Une histoire des Lumières au pays de Liège. Livre, idées, société. Les Éditions de l'Université de Liège, Liège 2007, ISBN 978-2-87456-036-1 , pp. 287–289.
- ↑ Philippe Delaite, Jean-Paul Depaire: Académie royale des beaux-arts de Liège. Une école d'art sur quatre siècles. Éditions Du Perron, Liège 2019, ISBN 978-2-87114-261-4 , pp. 50–60.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Defrance, Leonard |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | de France, Leonard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Walloon painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 5, 1735 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Liege |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 22, 1805 |
| Place of death | Liege |