Pierre-Paul Prud'hon
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Pierre-Paul Prud'hon ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}, 4 April 1758 – 16 February 16, 1823) was a French Romantic painter and draughtsman best known for his allegorical paintings and portraits such as Madame Georges Anthony and Her Two Sons (1796). He painted a portrait of each of Napoleon's two wives.
He was an early influence on Théodore Géricault and Constance Mayer, who may have influenced him as well, due to their intimate working relationship.
BiographyEdit
Pierre-Paul Prud'hon was born in Cluny, Saône-et-Loire, France. He received his artistic training in the French provinces and went to Italy when he was twenty-six years old to continue his education. On his return to Paris, he found work decorating some private mansions, often allegorical works such as The Soul Breaking the Links Holding it to the Earth and The Dream of Happiness. His work for wealthy Parisians led him to be held in high esteem at Napoleon's court.
His painting of Josephine portrays her not as an Empress, but as an attractive woman, which led some to think that he might have been in love with her. After the divorce of Napoleon and Josephine, he was also employed by Napoleon's second wife Marie-Louise.
Prud'hon was at times clearly influenced by Neo-classicism, at other times by Romanticism. He was appreciated by other artists and writers, including Stendhal, Delacroix, Millet and Baudelaire, for his chiaroscuro and convincing realism. He painted Crucifixion (1822) for St. Etienne's Cathedral in Metz; it now hangs in the Louvre.
The young Théodore Géricault had painted copies of work by Prud'hon, whose "thunderously tragic pictures" include his masterpiece, Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime, where oppressive darkness and the compositional base of a naked, sprawled corpse obviously anticipate Géricault's painting The Raft of the Medusa.<ref name=gayford>Gayford, Martin. "Distinctive power". The Spectator, November 1, 1997. Retrieved from findarticles.com on January 6, 2008.</ref>
GalleryEdit
- Pierre Paul Prud'hon, Male Nude Study, NGA 43605.jpg
Male Nude Study, National Gallery of Art
- Prud'hon - Louise Antoinette Scholastique Guéheneuc (1782-1856).jpg
- Saint-Just-French anon-MBA Lyon 1955-2-IMG 0450.jpg
Portrait of Louis de Saint-Just, 1793
- 1795, Prud'hon, Pierre-Paul, Nicolas Perchet.jpg
Nicolas Perchet, 1795, Princeton University Art Museum
- Female Nude.jpg
Female Nude, 1800
- Pierre-Paul Prud'hon 001.jpg
Portrait of Joséphine de Beauharnais, at the Louvre, Paris, 1805
- Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord - Pierre-Paul Prud'hon.jpg
Portrait of Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, 1817
- Prud'hon 1819 Amour tenant les rames.jpg
Study for The Dream of Happiness (with Constance Mayer), 1819
ReferencesEdit
Further readingEdit
General studiesEdit
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Reference worksEdit
External linksEdit
- Europe in the age of enlightenment and revolution, a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Prud'hon (see index)
- Crucifixion at Web Gallery of Art
- Pierre-Paul Prud’hon: Napoleon’s Draughtsman at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London