Napoléon on the battlefield of Preussisch-Eylau

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Napoléon sur le champ de bataille d'Eylau (Antoine-Jean Gros)
Napoléon sur le champ de bataille d'Eylau
Antoine-Jean Gros , 1808
Oil on canvas
521 × 784 cm
Louvre , Paris
Presentation at the Louvre illustrating the size of the picture

Napoléon on the battlefield of Preussisch-Eylau (original title: Napoléon sur le champ de bataille d'Eylau ) is a large-format historical painting and main work by the French painter Antoine-Jean Gros from 1808. The commissioned work of the French imperial government was supposed to be the loss-making battle Prussian Eylau with precise instructions to the artist, which concerned the representation, propagandistically positive for France. The painting is on display in the Louvre in Paris .

Historical background

After the Battle of Preussisch Eylau on February 8, 1807 in the Fourth Coalition War , both sides suffered great losses, but at the end of the battle there was no clear winner. The coalition withdrew, but Napoleon's troops were too weak to pursue. Of course, for propaganda purposes, France should come out victorious. And for this, a picture should be painted according to clear guidelines, as Napoleon wanted. Just five weeks after the battle, Dominique-Vivant Denon , the imperial minister of culture, published the specifications for the image program in the newspapers so that a competition could begin. This competition stipulated 16,000 francs for the winner . The specifications for the picture were specified:

  • large format.
  • no description of the actual fight because “all battles have a similar character”.
  • The day after the battle was to be portrayed, "when the emperor went to the battlefield to bring help and consolation indiscriminately to the honorable victims of the fighting".

The artists participating in the competition had the opportunity to study a drawing in the Musée Napoléon (now the Louvre ) showing geographical information and the groups of people desired by Dominique-Vivant Denon . The intention was not to portray the allegedly victorious French, but to show the emperor's humanity in the spirit of the French Revolution . Here, victory was taken for granted. The depiction of Napoleon's humanity was prescribed in detail:

"After every step the emperor stops at an injured person, has him questioned by an interpreter in his language, comforted and given medical care."

The purpose of the action was to suppress information about the Eylau slaughter from the public's mind. Therefore, no French victims should be shown, only those of the enemies, i.e. Russians and Prussians. This made Napoleon's victory all the more heroic. The falsification of history should be legitimized with a history picture, because the reality of the battle was different - there was no medical care for opposing wounded. Thousands froze to death after the battle at temperatures down to −30 ° C.

Twenty-six painters took part in the competition, including but not direct competitors of Gros such as François Gérard and Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson , both like Gros pupils of Jacques-Louis David , who did not respond to the tender. Antoine-Jean Gros was therefore the favorite from the start and won the competition. All incoming designs were exhibited publicly and in mid-June 1807 the jury made up of members of the Institut National des Sciences et Arts , today Institut de France, began with the assessment. Gros knew Napoleon earlier. At the beginning of the Jacobin reign of terror he went to Italy and met Napoleon in 1796 after the Battle of Arcole . He made a heroic portrait of the general (Museum Palace Versailles ) and went back to France when Napoleon came to power in 1799. Further pictures on the subject of the Egyptian expedition followed, including the picture Bonaparte visits the plague sufferers in Jaffa on March 11, 1799 (Louvre, Paris). This picture shows Napoleon already as a person of humanity, despite the specially emphasized risk of infection, and was very popular with the public and his client Napoleon, who recognized that a good public image could turn defeat into victory, because the Egyptian campaign was also there a failure. Elements of the composition, especially the design of the foreground with dying plague sufferers, are repeated in the picture of the battle of Prussian Eylau. With the public exhibition and discussion of the designs and the awarding of the award to Gros, the military debacle of Preussisch Eylau was almost forgotten after barely four months. In 1809 the painting by Antoine-Jean Gros was shown in the Paris Salon and Napoleon honored the painter for this work with the cross of the Legion of Honor when awarding the prize .

Competition artists and similar paintings

This competition was not the first to promote the fame of Emperor Napoleon. Dominique-Vivant Denon had already organized something similar in 1806 and every two years salons were supposed to exhibit elaborate paintings on which the military actions, all supposed successes, were to be portrayed positively. Since the French Revolution, the state used history painting to harness it for its own purposes. 26 painters applied for this commission for the 1807 competition: Bosselman, Adolphe Eugene Gabriel Roehn (1780–1867, received a Médaille d'or in the competition), J. Rigo, Pierre Bouillon (1776–1831), Antionette Gensoul-Desforets, Jean-François Dunant, Legrand, Charles Brocas (1774–1835, received a Médaille d'or in the competition), Jacques-Augustin-Catherine Pajou , Ris, Alexandre Veron-Bellecourt (1777–1849), Benjamin Zix , Laurent Dabos (1761 –1835), Charles Thévenin , Charles Meynier (runner-up), Tisserant (or Tisserand), Jean-Baptiste Debret , Louis Hersent , Marie-Nicolas Ponce-Camus (1778–1839), Pierre-Auguste Vafflard (1777–1837), Jean-Marc Lafon [d], Juhel, Antoine-François Callet , Jean-Pierre Franque (1774–1860) and Gros.

  • Napoléon sur le champ de bataille d'Eylau, le 9 février 1807 by Charles Meynier, 1807 Oil on canvas 93 × 146 cm Object: MV 8128 Palace of Versailles
  • Napoléon visite le champ de bataille de Preuss-Eylau by Auguste Raffet (1804–1860) lithograph; Municipal museum, La Roche-sur-Yon

Designed in 1807

In the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles under the object number "83.GG.361" is his sketch from 1807 for this painting, which was executed as a drawing with black and dark brown ink on graphite and the dimensions 27 × 44, 8 cm. Possibly a preliminary sketch for the design in oil that Gros submitted for this competition. He implemented the instructions of the museum director to show the emperor how he overlooks the battlefield and instructs his troops to help the wounded. A wounded Lithuanian soldier was to be shown swearing allegiance to the emperor for this grace. Gros sketched his first ideas in pencil and reinforced the outlines in thick black ink. Emperor Napoleon is placed in the middle of the scene as he rides between the wounded and the dying. The smaller oil painting submitted for the competition with different details is now in the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, USA.

description

Detail with the Russian officer who wants to kiss Napoleon's coat of arms
A Lithuanian soldier's oath of allegiance to the emperor
Image detail with the terrified-looking soldier
Russian fallen in fresh snow in the foreground of the picture

The painting produced by Gros for the Louvre has the format 521 × 784 cm and is executed using the painting technique oil on canvas . His 1807 design submitted for the competition was an oil painting with a format of 105 × 145 cm, which is now in the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, USA.

In the center of the work is Napoleon, riding his little Arabian stallion Vizir - the horse with wide eyes. The emperor wears a (not very military-looking) silk coat with fur trimmings and the usual two-pointed hat . In the foreground of the picture are the dead, dying and injured. To the right of the three Russian dead, below the right front hoof of the horse, a wounded soldier raises his right arm and points to Napoleon. To the right of this a bleeding Russian with a horrified look is being held back by a French paramedic in order to receive medical attention. At the right edge of the picture a Russian is being treated with his arms raised on his leg. Above it, two French people lift a wounded prisoner, looking incredulous, onto a horse. To Napoleon's right, General Joachim Murat is obviously waiting for instructions on his black horse, protected by a bearskin . Napoleon looks back with a greeting or a blessing on a defeated Lithuanian hussar . This man points with his left arm at the emperor, while he places his right arm on his heart to swear his unconditional allegiance to the emperor. Meanwhile, his injured left leg is being treated by a paramedic. To the left of the Lithuanian, looking at the emperor, stands Pierre-François Percy , Napoleon's military doctor and chief surgeon. Four kneeling Russian soldiers plead for mercy. One of them, an officer with long blond hair and pigtails, clasps Napoleon's boots and seems to have recognized the mercy of the French emperor, for he will kiss the victorious ruler's coat of arms on the saddle. Left and right behind the Kaiser is the military staff, as required in the tender. On the left, Antoine-Jean Gros portrayed Louis-Alexandre Berthier , Jean-Baptiste Bessières and Armand de Caulaincourt , and on the right, Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult , Louis-Nicolas Davout and Joachim Murat.

Rows of fallen soldiers can be seen in the background of the picture; to the right of it prisoners who are being led away. The newly formed French army can be seen in long rows - up to the still burning ruins. The church of Eylau is intact, the horses are cared for there. The motif of imperial gentleness, Latin clementia , which is the focus here, was already known from antiquity. The imperial soldiers are distinguished by virtues of civilization, as they provide medical and humanitarian aid to the wounded enemy soldiers. They give the injured food and blankets or bandage their wounds.

literature

  • John Walker McCoubrey: Gros' Battle of Eylau and Roman Imperial Art . In: John Shapley [u. a.] (Ed.): The Art Bulletin . tape 43 , no. June 2 , 1961, ISSN  0004-3079 , pp. 135-139 , doi : 10.1080 / 00043079.1961.10789464 , JSTOR : 3047946 .
  • Christopher Prendergast: Napoleon and History Painting: Antoine-Jean Gros's La Bataille D'Eylau . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1997, ISBN 0-19-817402-0 , pp. 3 (English, books.google.de - reading sample).
  • Martina Hansmann: On the relationship between innovation and tradition in Gros' "Napoleon on the battlefield near Preussisch-Eylau". Depiction and interpretation of historical reality on behalf of Napoleon. In: Stefan Germer, Michael F. Zimmermann (eds.): Images of power - power of images. Contemporary history in representations of the 19th century (=  publications of the Central Institute for Art History . Volume 12 ). Klinckhardt and Biermann, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-7814-0394-7 , p. 157-175 , plate IX. .
  • David O'Brien: Propaganda and the Republic of the Arts in Antoine-Jean Gros's Napoleon Visiting the Battlefield of Eylau the Morning After the Battle . In: French Historical Studies . tape 26 , no. 2 . Duke University Press, 2003, pp. 281-314 , doi : 10.1215 / 00161071-26-2-281 (English).
  • David O'Brien: Eylau, the Empire, and the Republic of the Arts . In: After the Revolution. Antoine-Jean Gros, Painting and Propaganda Under Napoleon . State University Press, Pennsylvania 2004, ISBN 0-271-02305-8 , pp. 152 ff . (English).

Web links

Commons : Napoleon on the battlefield of Preussisch-Eylau  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Manfred Heinrich Brunner: Antoine-Jean Gros. The Napoleonic History Pictures. Dissertation, Bonn 1979, p. 263.
  2. ↑ Pierre Leliève: Vivant Denon, homme des lumières, ministre des arts de Napoléon. Picard, Paris, 1993, ISBN 2-7084-0446-6 , p. 169.
  3. ^ Christopher Prendergast: Napoleon and Historical Painting. Antoine-Jean Gros's “La Bataille d'Eylau”. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1997, ISBN 0-19-817402-0 , pp. 117 ff.
  4. ↑ Gerrit Walczak: The day after. Napoleon on the battlefield of Eylau. - Salvation and heroism. In: Uwe Fleckner (Ed.): Pictures make history. Historical events in the memory of art. De Gruyter, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-05-006317-1 , p. 218 ff. ( Books.google.de , reading sample).
  5. ↑ François de Vergnette: oeuvre Napoléon sur le champ de bataille d'Eylau, le 9 février 1807 on louvre.fr (French)
  6. ^ Marc Gerstein: Denon et la politique des concours. In: Daniela Gallo: Les Vies de Dominique-Vivant Denon. Actes du colloque. Louvre èditions, Paris 2001, Volume 2, ISBN 2-11-004812-3 , p. 347 ff.
  7. ↑ Biographies et nécrologies des hommes marquants du xixe siècle . 1847, p. 221-223 ( books.google.de ).
  8. ↑ Brocas, Charles . In: Catalog raisonné de la galerie de peinture du musée de Toulouse… Douladoure, 1840, p. 337-338 ( books.google.de ).
  9. ↑ Werner Telesko: Napoleon Bonaparte: the "modern hero" and the fine arts 1799-1815 . Ed .: Austrian Gallery Belvedere. Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 1998, ISBN 978-3-205-98961-5 , p. 158 ( books.google.de ).
  10. ^ Napoléon sur le champ de bataille d'Eylau, le 9 février 1807 - Exposition Napoléon. In: versaillesarras.com. Retrieved March 2, 2018 (French).
  11. ↑ Auguste Raffet: Napoléon visite le champ de bataille de Preuss-Eylau. (Image)
  12. ^ Napoleon at the Battlefield of Eylau (Getty Museum). In: getty.edu. The J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles, accessed March 2, 2018 .
  13. ^ Napoleon on the Battlefield of Eylau.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Toledo Museum of Art website.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / emuseum.toledomuseum.org  
  14. ^ Jean-Jacques Breton: Louvre insolite: L'autre visage des oeuvres. Hugo & Cie, Paris 2013, ISBN 2-7556-1307-6 , p. 250 f.
  15. ↑ Gerrit Walczak: The day after. Napoleon on the battlefield of Eylau. - Salvation and heroism. In: Uwe Fleckner (Ed.): Pictures make history. Historical events in the memory of art. De Gruyter, Berlin 2014, p. 212 f.