(no subject)
Rachel Oldfield June 12, 2006
Western Civ. Mr. Newton
A Comparison Between Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Eugene Delacroix
Jean-Auguste-Dominque Ingres and Eugene Delacroix are two nineteenth century artists with a seemingly fixed place in the history of art. Throughout the nineteenth century, both artists were considered masters and though they encountered opposition at some point in their careers, their success was enormous. Ingres accepted the directorship of the French Academy of Rome in 1834 and was given the privilege of the title of Legion of Honor in 1845. Delacroix encountered early success and later in life became one of the most distinguished monumental mural painters in the history of French art, taking many public commissions and being awarded the medal of the Legion of Honor as well in 1831 . In 1855 at the Universal Exhibition of Paris, both artists were given the gold medal . In the words of Janson, “Delacroix was…seen, with Ingres, as the last great representative of mainstream European painting” . Yet for the degree of success both had in common, fundamental differences separated the two. Both hailed as magnificent painters, Ingres was named the guardian of traditional classicism in the Neoclassical style while Delacroix was made the champion of Romanticism in the Neo-baroque style. Their rivalry was a public one, given some formal standing when at the Salon of 1824 in Paris Ingres found himself the leader of academic opposition to Delacroix’s new Romantic movement .
Ingres has generally been typified as the Neoclassicist, the upholder of tradition, rejecter of Delacroix’s Romantic ideal, the Poussinist who held with deeper regard the clean lines of drawing over color. We can see all of these qualities manifested in his painting The Vow of Louis XIII (1820). The painting as a whole is typical of neoclassicist paintings in its firm rejection of Rococo frivolity. Pastel colors are entirely absent here and instead saturated golden yellow, vivid red, and deep blue dominate the picture.
Though the subject matter of The Vow of Louis XIII does not derive from antiquity, its style certainly shows it to be recalling classicism, even via the classicism of Renaissance painters such as Raphael. Though it is not entirely symmetrical, the painting is composed so that it has the Greek symmetria, a balance. The Madonna and child in the center form the focal point of the picture, flanked evenly by the heavy curtains that sweep outward towards the edges of the painting. The curtains are then met by two inwardly bending angels whose curve counteracts that of the curtains. The curtains and the angels together form a sort of diamond that neatly encloses the Madonna and child, echoing the wide from of her hips and the narrowness of her head.
Besides its composition, the very way the figures are portrayed betrays classically inspired roots. Ingres has endowed the figures with a certain weight and bearing, a certain solidity that links them to classical statues. The forms are substantial; one can see the weight of the Madonna’s leg beneath her clothing. The smooth roundedness of the Child is made clear by the changes in value. The classicism is also evident through the drapery that Ingres has depicted very naturalistically; one can sense the difference between the fabric over the Madonna’s legs that is experiencing tension, and the drapery of the angels’ that is billowed slightly because of their movement through the air. Ingres uses clean, precise lines that neatly articulate the forms of the drapery and the bodies. The small area of clouds above Louis XIII are comprised of patches of light and color as opposed to linear definition, yet for the most part the overall image is crisp and distinct, relying in large part on form and the linear aspect to make his painting effective. Finally, in the lack of emotionalism of the expressions of the figures one finds again this sense of order and propriety, cosmos almost. The faces of both the Madonna and Child are focused serenely downward, mouths primly closed, while the angel on the right gazes languidly over its right shoulder towards the opposite angel. All are calm, cool, collected, like the statues of Greece during its classical period.
By contrast, Eugene Delacroix, the “leading exponent of romantic painting in France”, has traditionally been called the more liberal Neo-Baroque painter, the Romantic whose master is emotion and the Rubeniste who values color . This opposite but also successful style can be seen in Delacroix’s Odalisque, painted in 1845-1850. The subject matter alone is enough to deem the painting Romantic and utterly anti-classical; not only is woman a harem girl from the Middle East, but she is foreign and intriguing, the quintessential captivator of a Romantic’s heart. Delacroix wrote of his trip to Morocco in 1832 “I am quite overwhelmed by what I have seen”, and he infuses this painting with the richness of what he saw and experienced.
Immediately apparent is the vivid use of color that illuminates the entire painting. As Delacroix himself said, “colour is…one of the founding principles of painting…colour gives the appearance of life” . Delacroix makes the flesh of the woman glow in orange, peach, gold, and sand tones. The underside of her body, including her face and the inside of her legs, is lit up with the warm red from the cloth that she lies on. While Ingres' Vow of Louis XIII also employs very saturated colors, in a way they all seem darkened and muted. The primary colors of red, blue, and yellow (the Madonna’s clothing and the background behind) seem to balance each other while in Odalisque the lively warmth of the woman’s body is emphasized by the contrast of her body thrust up against the nearly black background.
In other ways Delacroix’s Odalisque can be seen as the stylistic opposite of Ingres as well. Whereas from Ingres’ Vow of Louis XIII we saw how much he relied on line and clarity of form to articulate his figures, Delacroix relies purely on color and value to make his forms three dimensional and real. One cannot see actual folds of skin as in the Child in Vow of Louis XIII, but recesses in the woman’s body are indicated through splashes of darker color such as the definition of her left calc and in the muscles of her bicep. Neither she nor any of the objects have a clear outline but rather come alive through contrasts in color and light. Her bed is an amalgamation of vivid red and dirty orange, the mattress of a grayish blue and cool orange yellow. In addition, unlike the graceful and poised figures in Vow of Louis XIII, the odalisque lies in ecstatic oblivion - arm limp and hand dangling, leg outstretched, chest and hips thrust passionately and seductively upward. The picture as a whole radiates passion and emotion. Delacroix shows no attempt at restraint, either in his painting style or treatment of his subject matter.
From these two paintings it may seem as if, indeed, the styles and philosophies of Ingres and Delacroix could not be more different. From portraying a traditional Madonna and Child to a harem girl from Morocco and from crisply defined drapery to free splashes of color, the two artists truly do seem to live up to their personas as opponents. Yet at the same time, could their positions really be so cut and dry, so fixed, so singular? Upon closer examination of each artist’s full range of work it becomes apparent that not only can they be vastly different from each other but also that each is very different from what is generalized about them.
In Ingres’ Odalisque (1814), some of the calm collectedness of his other work is present, but at the same time this painting is very different from his traditional work. For one thing, the subject matter alone contradicts with his Neo-classical image. The mysteriously erotic harem girl in no way relates to antiquity, and to a large degree neither does how he paints her. The form of her body with its elongated proportions and smoothly tapering limbs is not classical at all. As well, even though Ingres himself and others see him as valuing the line above all else, here it is the use of color which makes the painting so magnificent and rich. The smooth, warm, and peachy flesh of the woman is emphasized against the dark blue of the curtain and bed that she lies on, while the rusty orange cloth in the lower left hand corner adds a bright accent. Probably most notable is the effect the painting has on the viewer. The woman’s body is positioned away from the viewer but she captivates your interest by turning ever so slightly back towards the viewer, half her face in shadow but her eyes searching. There is nothing wildly emotional as in Delacroix’s Odalisque, but at the same time her cool interest is mysteriously alluring and intriguingly erotic and full of latent passion. The painter Jacques-Emile Blanche noted how Ingres’ attempted to ”reconcile his militant idealism based on classical perfection with a delight in color and all appreciation of the sensual” . It seems there is a contradiction to Ingres’ Neo-Classical, Poussinist image, especially if Baudelaire can come to the conclusion that his finest works “are the product of a deeply sensuous nature” .
Just as Ingres assimilates Romantic elements into his normally Neo-Classical work, classical influences are also apparent in Delacroix’s work, such as in The Entombment of Christ (1848). First of all, the subject matter is an indication of a step down from the exotic to the traditional. While he still paints the image with emotion, there seems to be something missing. Delacroix uses mostly dark, dull colors - except for the blood red clothing of the man in the front and the white cloth hat covers the dead Christ - and they are not used to enliven the picture like in his Odalisque. There is an air of melancholy about the picture but nothing about it is too overly emotional. In the fact of the woman whose hand reaches for Jesus’ head we see an expression of forlorn sadness, but the faces of all the others are merely downcast with little more than a hint of sadness. On the whole it is more restrained. It is considerably less “painterly”; it doesn’t have that same glow that his Odalisque has and in fact the drapery of the man in the foreground is modeled more like that of the figures in Ingres’ Vow of Louis XIII.
In attempting to study artists and their works, it is tempting to label them and categorize them. This is what history has done to Delacroix and Ingres by pigeonholing them as The Neo-Classicist and The Romantic. Much of this is indeed true, yet one must look beyond these names to realize that art is never one singular style. The supposed Neo-Classicism of Ingres and the Romanticism of Delacroix are not mutually exclusive. Rather, both attitudes and styles of painting draw inspiration from each other. As Giles Neret wrote, “it is not enough to imitate the great masters, one must, instead, draw on them for inspiration as one seeks to transcend their achievement” . Ingres and Delacroix were both so successful and important because they did not seek to copy any one person or even any one style, but instead assimilated different characteristics to create their own different, but equally successful and unique works.
Eugene Delacroix. June 6, 2006. .
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Biography. May 31, 2005. .
H.W. Janson, History of Art (5th ed.; New York 1995) p. 667
JEAN, Auguste-Dominique Ingres: Biography. June 2, 2006. .
“Eugene Delacroix” in The Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia (1997), p. 106
Giles Neret, Eugene Delacroix 1798-1863: The Prince of Romanticism: Benedikt Taschen Verlag Inc., 1999, p. 56
Aileen Ribeiro, Ingres in Fashion: Yale University Press, 1999. p. 82
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, June 6, 2006. .
Giles Neret, Eugene Delacroix 1798-1863: The Prince of Romanticism: Benedikt Taschen Verlag Inc., 1999, p. 77
vow of louis xiii: http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/i/ingres/11ingres.html
odalisque (delacroix): www.abcgallery.com/ D/delacroix/delacroix48.html
odalisque (ingres): http://www.wga.hu/art/i /ingres/05ingres.jpg
entombment of christ (delacroix): http://classicartrepro.com/data/large/Delacroix/The_Entombment_of_Christ.jpgz
Western Civ. Mr. Newton
A Comparison Between Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Eugene Delacroix
Jean-Auguste-Dominque Ingres and Eugene Delacroix are two nineteenth century artists with a seemingly fixed place in the history of art. Throughout the nineteenth century, both artists were considered masters and though they encountered opposition at some point in their careers, their success was enormous. Ingres accepted the directorship of the French Academy of Rome in 1834 and was given the privilege of the title of Legion of Honor in 1845. Delacroix encountered early success and later in life became one of the most distinguished monumental mural painters in the history of French art, taking many public commissions and being awarded the medal of the Legion of Honor as well in 1831 . In 1855 at the Universal Exhibition of Paris, both artists were given the gold medal . In the words of Janson, “Delacroix was…seen, with Ingres, as the last great representative of mainstream European painting” . Yet for the degree of success both had in common, fundamental differences separated the two. Both hailed as magnificent painters, Ingres was named the guardian of traditional classicism in the Neoclassical style while Delacroix was made the champion of Romanticism in the Neo-baroque style. Their rivalry was a public one, given some formal standing when at the Salon of 1824 in Paris Ingres found himself the leader of academic opposition to Delacroix’s new Romantic movement .
Ingres has generally been typified as the Neoclassicist, the upholder of tradition, rejecter of Delacroix’s Romantic ideal, the Poussinist who held with deeper regard the clean lines of drawing over color. We can see all of these qualities manifested in his painting The Vow of Louis XIII (1820). The painting as a whole is typical of neoclassicist paintings in its firm rejection of Rococo frivolity. Pastel colors are entirely absent here and instead saturated golden yellow, vivid red, and deep blue dominate the picture.
Though the subject matter of The Vow of Louis XIII does not derive from antiquity, its style certainly shows it to be recalling classicism, even via the classicism of Renaissance painters such as Raphael. Though it is not entirely symmetrical, the painting is composed so that it has the Greek symmetria, a balance. The Madonna and child in the center form the focal point of the picture, flanked evenly by the heavy curtains that sweep outward towards the edges of the painting. The curtains are then met by two inwardly bending angels whose curve counteracts that of the curtains. The curtains and the angels together form a sort of diamond that neatly encloses the Madonna and child, echoing the wide from of her hips and the narrowness of her head.
Besides its composition, the very way the figures are portrayed betrays classically inspired roots. Ingres has endowed the figures with a certain weight and bearing, a certain solidity that links them to classical statues. The forms are substantial; one can see the weight of the Madonna’s leg beneath her clothing. The smooth roundedness of the Child is made clear by the changes in value. The classicism is also evident through the drapery that Ingres has depicted very naturalistically; one can sense the difference between the fabric over the Madonna’s legs that is experiencing tension, and the drapery of the angels’ that is billowed slightly because of their movement through the air. Ingres uses clean, precise lines that neatly articulate the forms of the drapery and the bodies. The small area of clouds above Louis XIII are comprised of patches of light and color as opposed to linear definition, yet for the most part the overall image is crisp and distinct, relying in large part on form and the linear aspect to make his painting effective. Finally, in the lack of emotionalism of the expressions of the figures one finds again this sense of order and propriety, cosmos almost. The faces of both the Madonna and Child are focused serenely downward, mouths primly closed, while the angel on the right gazes languidly over its right shoulder towards the opposite angel. All are calm, cool, collected, like the statues of Greece during its classical period.
By contrast, Eugene Delacroix, the “leading exponent of romantic painting in France”, has traditionally been called the more liberal Neo-Baroque painter, the Romantic whose master is emotion and the Rubeniste who values color . This opposite but also successful style can be seen in Delacroix’s Odalisque, painted in 1845-1850. The subject matter alone is enough to deem the painting Romantic and utterly anti-classical; not only is woman a harem girl from the Middle East, but she is foreign and intriguing, the quintessential captivator of a Romantic’s heart. Delacroix wrote of his trip to Morocco in 1832 “I am quite overwhelmed by what I have seen”, and he infuses this painting with the richness of what he saw and experienced.
Immediately apparent is the vivid use of color that illuminates the entire painting. As Delacroix himself said, “colour is…one of the founding principles of painting…colour gives the appearance of life” . Delacroix makes the flesh of the woman glow in orange, peach, gold, and sand tones. The underside of her body, including her face and the inside of her legs, is lit up with the warm red from the cloth that she lies on. While Ingres' Vow of Louis XIII also employs very saturated colors, in a way they all seem darkened and muted. The primary colors of red, blue, and yellow (the Madonna’s clothing and the background behind) seem to balance each other while in Odalisque the lively warmth of the woman’s body is emphasized by the contrast of her body thrust up against the nearly black background.
In other ways Delacroix’s Odalisque can be seen as the stylistic opposite of Ingres as well. Whereas from Ingres’ Vow of Louis XIII we saw how much he relied on line and clarity of form to articulate his figures, Delacroix relies purely on color and value to make his forms three dimensional and real. One cannot see actual folds of skin as in the Child in Vow of Louis XIII, but recesses in the woman’s body are indicated through splashes of darker color such as the definition of her left calc and in the muscles of her bicep. Neither she nor any of the objects have a clear outline but rather come alive through contrasts in color and light. Her bed is an amalgamation of vivid red and dirty orange, the mattress of a grayish blue and cool orange yellow. In addition, unlike the graceful and poised figures in Vow of Louis XIII, the odalisque lies in ecstatic oblivion - arm limp and hand dangling, leg outstretched, chest and hips thrust passionately and seductively upward. The picture as a whole radiates passion and emotion. Delacroix shows no attempt at restraint, either in his painting style or treatment of his subject matter.
From these two paintings it may seem as if, indeed, the styles and philosophies of Ingres and Delacroix could not be more different. From portraying a traditional Madonna and Child to a harem girl from Morocco and from crisply defined drapery to free splashes of color, the two artists truly do seem to live up to their personas as opponents. Yet at the same time, could their positions really be so cut and dry, so fixed, so singular? Upon closer examination of each artist’s full range of work it becomes apparent that not only can they be vastly different from each other but also that each is very different from what is generalized about them.
In Ingres’ Odalisque (1814), some of the calm collectedness of his other work is present, but at the same time this painting is very different from his traditional work. For one thing, the subject matter alone contradicts with his Neo-classical image. The mysteriously erotic harem girl in no way relates to antiquity, and to a large degree neither does how he paints her. The form of her body with its elongated proportions and smoothly tapering limbs is not classical at all. As well, even though Ingres himself and others see him as valuing the line above all else, here it is the use of color which makes the painting so magnificent and rich. The smooth, warm, and peachy flesh of the woman is emphasized against the dark blue of the curtain and bed that she lies on, while the rusty orange cloth in the lower left hand corner adds a bright accent. Probably most notable is the effect the painting has on the viewer. The woman’s body is positioned away from the viewer but she captivates your interest by turning ever so slightly back towards the viewer, half her face in shadow but her eyes searching. There is nothing wildly emotional as in Delacroix’s Odalisque, but at the same time her cool interest is mysteriously alluring and intriguingly erotic and full of latent passion. The painter Jacques-Emile Blanche noted how Ingres’ attempted to ”reconcile his militant idealism based on classical perfection with a delight in color and all appreciation of the sensual” . It seems there is a contradiction to Ingres’ Neo-Classical, Poussinist image, especially if Baudelaire can come to the conclusion that his finest works “are the product of a deeply sensuous nature” .
Just as Ingres assimilates Romantic elements into his normally Neo-Classical work, classical influences are also apparent in Delacroix’s work, such as in The Entombment of Christ (1848). First of all, the subject matter is an indication of a step down from the exotic to the traditional. While he still paints the image with emotion, there seems to be something missing. Delacroix uses mostly dark, dull colors - except for the blood red clothing of the man in the front and the white cloth hat covers the dead Christ - and they are not used to enliven the picture like in his Odalisque. There is an air of melancholy about the picture but nothing about it is too overly emotional. In the fact of the woman whose hand reaches for Jesus’ head we see an expression of forlorn sadness, but the faces of all the others are merely downcast with little more than a hint of sadness. On the whole it is more restrained. It is considerably less “painterly”; it doesn’t have that same glow that his Odalisque has and in fact the drapery of the man in the foreground is modeled more like that of the figures in Ingres’ Vow of Louis XIII.
In attempting to study artists and their works, it is tempting to label them and categorize them. This is what history has done to Delacroix and Ingres by pigeonholing them as The Neo-Classicist and The Romantic. Much of this is indeed true, yet one must look beyond these names to realize that art is never one singular style. The supposed Neo-Classicism of Ingres and the Romanticism of Delacroix are not mutually exclusive. Rather, both attitudes and styles of painting draw inspiration from each other. As Giles Neret wrote, “it is not enough to imitate the great masters, one must, instead, draw on them for inspiration as one seeks to transcend their achievement” . Ingres and Delacroix were both so successful and important because they did not seek to copy any one person or even any one style, but instead assimilated different characteristics to create their own different, but equally successful and unique works.
Eugene Delacroix. June 6, 2006. .
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Biography. May 31, 2005. .
H.W. Janson, History of Art (5th ed.; New York 1995) p. 667
JEAN, Auguste-Dominique Ingres: Biography. June 2, 2006. .
“Eugene Delacroix” in The Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia (1997), p. 106
Giles Neret, Eugene Delacroix 1798-1863: The Prince of Romanticism: Benedikt Taschen Verlag Inc., 1999, p. 56
Aileen Ribeiro, Ingres in Fashion: Yale University Press, 1999. p. 82
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, June 6, 2006. .
Giles Neret, Eugene Delacroix 1798-1863: The Prince of Romanticism: Benedikt Taschen Verlag Inc., 1999, p. 77
vow of louis xiii: http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/i/ingres/11ingres.html
odalisque (delacroix): www.abcgallery.com/ D/delacroix/delacroix48.html
odalisque (ingres): http://www.wga.hu/art/i /ingres/05ingres.jpg
entombment of christ (delacroix): http://classicartrepro.com/data/large/Delacroix/The_Entombment_of_Christ.jpgz