Paul Delaroche

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Paul Delaroche

Paul Delaroche (rarely also Hippolyte Delaroche ; born July 17, 1797 in Paris , † November 4, 1856 ibid) was a French history painter of academic realism .

Life

Origin and family

He was baptized as Hippolyte de la Roche. But in the family he was called Paul. In the 1920s he began to sign his pictures with P. (or Paul) Delaroche .

His father was Grégoire-Hippolyte de la Roche, born in 1761, who came from a family that had lived in Paris for generations. He worked as an art expert and dealer , art taxator at the pawnshop and art auction manager. He was married to Marie-Catherine Bégat, who was a year younger than him. Paul Delaroche's maternal uncle was curator of the Cabinet des Estampes . They lived in a house on rue de la Vrillière in the 1st arrondissement . Paul was the second son, he had a brother, Jules , born in 1795 , who also became a painter.

On January 28, 1835, in Rome, he married Louise Vernet, 17 years his junior, the daughter of his colleague Horace Vernet . He had got engaged to her the year before during a trip to Italy, Horace Vernet was director of the Académie de France à Rome at the time . Louise was portrayed by him several times and was his model, although paintings of her by Théodore Géricault (as a child), Ingres and her father have survived. The first son Horace was born in 1836, the second son Philippe followed in 1841. On December 28, 1845, Louise died of a fever at the age of 31, which plunged Delaroche into deep despair.

education

He began his training in 1816 as a landscape painter with Louis Étienne Watelet . Two years later he moved to the studio of Antoine-Jean Gros , to which his brother was already a member. In 1822 he made his debut at the Salon de Paris . Here he met Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix , who were of roughly the same age , with whom he soon formed the core of the Parisian history painters.

success

1824 showed the young painter in the salon the images "St Vincent de Paule, Prechant devant la Cour de Louis XIII, pour les Enfans Abandonées" and "Joan of Arc, malade, est dans sa interrogée prison par le cardinal de Winchester" that found great recognition and made him known in one fell swoop. In the following years he presented La mort d'Elisabeth Ire (The death of Elizabeth), Les Enfants d'Édouard (The children of King Edward), Charles Ier insulté par les soldats de Cromwell (Charles I, mocked by the soldiers of Cromwell), Cromwell au cercueil de Charles Ier d'Angleterre (Cromwell contemplating Charles I's corpse), La mort de Lady Jane Gray (The Execution of Jane Gray), L'Assassinat du duc de Guise (The Assassination of the Duke of Guise) and further large-format paintings, which mainly showed events from English and French history in a dramatic exaggeration, often emotionally charged by the looks, facial expressions and gestures of the protagonists. His obvious preference for the subjects of execution of the aristocrats was sometimes mocked by his contemporaries. In the context of the situation at the time, however, still heavily influenced by the traumatic events of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars and the continued upheavals, his audience understood the motifs as symbols of the current political uncertainty. The works of Lord Byron also had a thematic influence . In 1832, at the age of 35, he followed the seat of the late Charles Meynier at the Académie des Beaux-Arts as the youngest member . Soon after, he began teaching at the École des beaux-arts . He had his studio in the Rue Mazarin in the ( 6th arrondissement ) in Paris. In 1837 he began work on a monumental mural 27 meters long in the semicircle (French: Hémicycle ) of the examination room of the École des beaux-arts, where the award ceremonies also took place. In the manner of Raphael's School of Athens , he portrayed 75 painters, sculptors and architects from all epochs, who were then regarded as the canon of the visual arts, in groups, engrossed in conversations. He showed them anachronistically, in the clothes typical of their respective time . In the center of the fresco there are allegories of the arts and art epochs. Delaroche finished the work in 1841. In 1838 and 1843 he again traveled to Italy. In 1849 he traveled to Germany. He was at the height of fame in the last years of his life, and in 1853 an Italian review rated him as the most important of the living painters.

Paul Delaroche died in Paris at the age of 59. Eugène Delacroix took over his seat in the academy.

student

In 1835, after the suicide of Antoine-Jean Gros, he took over his teaching studio, which he ran until 1843. That year he gave up teaching despite vigorous protests from his students after a student died in an initiation rite. His numerous students included Marie-Alexandre Alophe , Edward Armitage , Gustave Boulanger , Friedrich August Bouterwek , Charles-François Daubigny , Edouard Frère , Jean-Léon Gérôme , Charles Landelle , Charles Lucy , Jean-François Millet and Adolphe Yvon , but also pioneers of photography like Gustave Le Gray and Charles Nègre . With regard to the daguerreotype , an early form of photography that emerged in the 1830s, the sentence is ascribed to him: "À partir d'aujourd'hui la peinture est morte." ("From today on, painting is dead.")

Honors and memberships

Style and motifs

Paul Delaroche's work clearly showed the classicistic plastic approach of his teachers, but also clear influences of Romanticism . In contrast to Delacroix, for example, his brushstroke can hardly be made out, the contours are emphasized. Delaroche worked very accurately, he prepared his work intensively, for example by checking the shadows cast on wax models. The choice of motifs was not necessarily about historical accuracy, but about suitable scenes for the intense representation of emotions. Mostly it depicts the moment immediately before or after an event. In part, he constructed situations, such as the interrogation of Joan of Arc by the Cardinal of Winchester, that had never happened. Jane Gray's execution scene in the Tower is also ahistorical; it actually took place in the open air. In the last years of his life he turned increasingly to religious subjects and portraits, including his family members. The personalities he portrayed included the politicians and writers François Guizot , Alphonse de Lamartine , Charles de Rémusat , Narcisse-Achille de Salvandy and Adolphe Thiers .

Work (selection)

painting
Mural
  • Fresco on the semicircle in the amphithéâtre d'honneur of the academy, oil on plaster, 1837–1841, École des beaux-arts , Paris

  • The examination room.

  • Left half, with Titian, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Rubens and Velazquez and the sculptors.

  • The middle group with Iktinos (architecture), Appeles (painting) and Phidias (sculpture) as well as the allegories of the epochs (Greek and Roman antiquity, Gothic and Renaissance).

  • Right half, shown include Giotto, Raffael, da Vinci, Michelangelo and Dürer as well as the architects.

reception

During his lifetime in the first half of the 19th century, Paul Delaroche was highly regarded throughout Europe for his highly realistic paintings of mostly tragic or dark historical scenes. From 1822 to 1837 he exhibited regularly at the Salon de Paris, where he caused a sensation in 1834. After his death, his colleagues gave a major retrospective in Paris. After that, however, he was soon overshadowed by contemporaries such as Delacroix and Ingres . In the 20th century Delaroche was largely forgotten, his style was seen as pedantic and old-fashioned, the pathetic heightening of the motifs as sentimental. An example of this is that one of his main works, the execution of Lady Jane Gray , disappeared in the depot of the National Gallery in London for decades until it was found again by accident in 1973. Only at the turn of the 21st century was he again given more recognition as one of the most important history painters of his era.

Exhibitions

  • 1857: Retrospective at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris
  • February 3 - April 23, 2000: Paul Delaroche, un peintre dans l'histoire. Fabre Museum, Montpellier.
  • February 24 - May 22, 2010: Painting History: Delaroche and Lady Jane Gray. National Gallery, London.
  • March 8 - May 21, 2012: Un oeil sur l'histoire - Designs by Paul Delaroche. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
  • October 11, 2015 - January 17, 2016: Eugène Delacroix & Paul Delaroche - History as a sensation. Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig.

literature

Web links

Commons : Paul Delaroche  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ dwc.knaw.nl: P. Delaroche (1797– 1856) (accessed on January 15, 2016)
  2. ↑ nationalacademy.org: Past Academicians “D” / Delaroche, Paul Hippolyte Honorary 1845 ( Memento of the original from January 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on January 15, 2016) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nationalacademy.org
  3. ↑ pourlemerite.de: Paul Hippolyte Delaroche, painter  ( 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. (accessed on January 15, 2016)@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.pourlemerite.de  
personal data
SURNAME Delaroche, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Delaroche, Paul Hippolyte; De la Roche, Hippolyte (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French painter
DATE OF BIRTH July 17, 1797
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH November 4, 1856
Place of death Paris