Template:Short description Template:Infobox artist Hubert Robert ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}; 22 May 1733 – 15 April 1808) was a French painter in the school of Romanticism, noted especially for his landscape paintings and capricci, or semi-fictitious picturesque depictions of ruins in Italy and of France.<ref name=re>Jean de Cayeux. "Robert, Hubert." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 13 Jan. 2017</ref>
BiographyEdit
Early yearsEdit
Hubert Robert was born in Paris in 1733. His father, Nicolas Robert, was in the service of François-Joseph de Choiseul, marquis de Stainville a leading diplomat from Lorraine. Young Robert finished his studies with the Jesuits at the Collège de Navarre in 1751 and entered the atelier of the sculptor Michel-Ange Slodtz who taught him design and perspective but encouraged him to turn to painting. In 1754 he left for Rome in the train of Étienne-François de Choiseul, son of his father's employer, who had been named French ambassador and would become a Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to Louis XV in 1758.
In RomeEdit
He spent fully eleven years in Rome, a remarkable length of time; after the young artist's official residence at the French Academy in Rome ran out, he supported himself by works he produced for visiting connoisseurs like the abbé de Saint-Non, who took Robert to Naples in April 1760 to visit the ruins of Pompeii. The marquis de Marigny, director of the Bâtiments du Roi kept abreast of his development in correspondence with Natoire, director of the French Academy, who urged the pensionnaires to sketch out-of-doors, from nature: Robert needed no urging; drawings from his sketchbooks document his travels: Villa d'Este, Caprarola.
The contrast between the ruins of ancient Rome and the life of his time excited his keenest interest.Template:Sfn He worked for a time in the studio of Giovanni Paolo Panini, whose influence can be seen in the Vue imaginaire de la galerie du Louvre en ruine (illustration). Robert spent his time in the company of young artists in the circle of Piranesi, whose capricci of romantically overgrown ruins influenced him so greatly that he gained the nickname Robert des ruines.<ref>Robert possessed no fewer than twenty-five of Pannini's canvases. (Jean Cailleux, "Introduction to the Method of Hubert Robert"The Burlington Magazine 109 No. 767, February 1967), p. i.</ref> The albums of sketches and drawings he assembled in Rome supplied him with motifs that he worked into paintings throughout his career.<ref>Sarah Catala, "La matérialité fonctionnelle, Quelques refléxions sur les pratiques de dessin d'Hubert Robert", in exh. cat. Hubert Robert, un peintre visionnaire, Paris, éditions du musée du Louvre / Somogy, p. 65-72.</ref>
He is reported to have carved his name into the walls of the Colosseum in 1767.<ref name="WaPo">Template:Cite news</ref>
In ParisEdit
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His success on his return to Paris in 1765 was rapid: the following year he was received by the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, with a Roman capriccio, The Port of Rome, ornamented with different Monuments of Architecture, Ancient and Modern.<ref>Le port de Rome, orné de différens Monumens d'Architecture ancien et moderne.</ref> Robert's first exhibition at the Salon of 1767, consisting of thirteen paintings and a number of drawings, prompted Denis Diderot to write: "The ideas which the ruins awake in me are grand." Robert subsequently showed work at every Salon until 1802.<ref name="Bailey_2016"/> He was successively appointed "Designer of the King's Gardens", "Keeper of the King's Pictures" and "Keeper of the Museum and Councilor to the Academy".<ref>Dessinateur des Jardins du Roi, Garde des tableaux du Roi, and Garde du Museum et conseiller à l'Academie</ref>
Robert was arrested in October 1793, during the French Revolution.<ref>18 brumaire An II</ref> During the ten months of his detention at Sainte-Pélagie and Saint-Lazare he made many drawings, painted at least 53 canvases, and painted numerous vignettes of prison life on plates.<ref name="Bailey_2016"/> He was freed one week after the fall of Robespierre.<ref>He was released 18 thermidor 1794.</ref> Robert narrowly escaped the guillotine when through error another prisoner with a similar name was guillotined in his place.<ref>Histoire de Paris, Héron de Villefosse, Editions Grasset (Paris), 1955, pg 181</ref>
Subsequently, he was placed on the committee of five in charge of the new national museum at the Palais du Louvre.
The Revolution also resulted in the destruction of some of Robert's work; his painting Péché Cardinal (ca.1799) is one that is thought to be lost or destroyed in a fire.Template:Citation needed Robert had designed the decorations for a little theatre in the new wing at the location of the current staircase Gabriel in the Palace of Versailles. Designed to seat about 500, this theatre was built from the summer of 1785 and opened in early 1786. It was intended to serve as an ordinary court theatre, replacing the Theatre of the Princes Court which was too old and too small, but was destroyed during the time of Louis Philippe. A watercolour of Robert's design is in the National Archives in Paris.<ref>A colour print of a detail of the design is mounted in Huisman, p88.</ref>
Robert died of a stroke on 15 April 1808.
Style and legacyEdit
The quantity of his work is immense, comprising perhaps one thousand paintings and ten thousand drawings.<ref name="Bailey_2016">Colin B. Bailey, "Hubert Robert & the Joy of Ruins", The New York Review of Books 63.15 (October 13, 2016), pp. 35–37.</ref> The Louvre alone contains nine paintings by his hand and specimens are frequently to be met with in provincial museums and private collections. Robert's work has more or less of that scenic character which justified his selection by Voltaire to paint the decorations of his theatre at Ferney.Template:Sfn
His work was much engraved by the abbé de Saint-Non, with whom he had visited Naples in the company of Fragonard during his early days; in Italy his work has also been frequently reproduced by Chatelain, Linard, Le Veau, and others.Template:Sfn
He is noted for the liveliness and point with which he treated the subjects he painted. Equally at ease painting small easel pictures or huge decorations, he worked quickly using an alla prima technique.<ref>Hubert Robert Biography, National Gallery of Art https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.1832.html</ref> Along with this incessant activity as an artist, his daring character and many adventures attracted general admiration and sympathy. In the fourth canto of his L'Imagination Jacques Delille celebrated Robert's miraculous escape when lost in the catacombs.Template:Sfn
Robert and picturesque gardensEdit
Enterprising and prolific, Robert also acted in a role similar to that of a modern-day art director, conceptualizing fashionably dilapidated gardens for several aristocratic clients, summarized by his possible intervention at Ermenonville; there he would have been working with the architect Jean-Marie Morel for the marquis de Girardin, who was the author of Compositions des paysages (1777) and had distinct views of his own. In 1786 he began his better documented<ref>Victor Carlson, "Hubert Robert in Rome: Some Pen-and-Wash Drawings" Master Drawings 39.3 (Autumn 2001, pp. 288-299) p. 291.</ref> collaboration at Méréville, with his most significant patron, the financier Jean-Joseph de Laborde, who found François-Joseph Bélanger's plans too expensive and perhaps too formal.
Though documents are again lacking, Hubert Robert's name is invariably invoked in connection with Marie Antoinette's 'premier architecte' Richard Mique through several phases of the creation of an informal landscape garden at the Petit Trianon, and the setting of the petit hameau. Robert's contribution to garden design was not in making practical ground plans for improvements but in providing atmospheric inspiration for the proposed effect.<ref>Compare the role of Louis Moreau at Bagatelle.</ref> At Ermenonville and at Méréville "Hubert Robert's paintings both recorded and inspired", according to W.H. Adams:<ref>Adams1979:104</ref> Robert's four large ruin fantasies, painted in 1787 for Méréville<ref>At the Art Institute of Chicago.</ref> may be searched in vain for direct connections with the garden. Hubert's paintings of the Moulin Joly of his friend Claude-Henri Watelet render the fully-grown atmosphere of a garden that had been under way since 1754. His set of six Italianate landscape panels painted for Bagatelle<ref>At the Metropolitan Museum of Art.</ref> were not the inspiration for the formal turfed parterre set in the thinned woodlands, designed by Bélanger; the later picturesque extensions of Bagatelle were carried out by its Scottish gardener, William Blaikie.<ref>Joseph Baillio, "Hubert Robert's Decorations for the Château de Bagatelle" Metropolitan Museum Journal 27 (1992), pp. 149–182.</ref> Robert's commissioned painting of the long-delayed rejuvenation of the park at Versailles, begun in 1774 with the cutting down of the trees for sale as firewood, is a record of the event, resonant with allegorical meaning.<ref>Paula Rea Radisich, "The King Prunes His Garden: Hubert Robert's Picture of the Versailles Gardens in 1775" Eighteenth-Century Studies 21.4 (Summer 1988), pp. 454–471.</ref> Robert was more certainly responsible for the conception of the grotto and cascades of the 'Baths of Apollo,' tucked within a grove of the chateau's park and built to house François Girardon's celebrated sculpture group Apollo Attended by Nymphs.
GalleryEdit
Works on paperEdit
- Capriccio with an Ancient Temple MET DP823635 (cropped).jpg
Capriccio (ca. 1756), watercolor, 56.4 x 41.3 cm., Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Hubert Robert - The Oval Fountain in the Gardens of the Villa d'Este, Tivoli - Google Art Project (cropped).jpg
Oval Fountain in the Villa d'Este Gardens, Tivoli (1760), 32.7 x 45 cm., National Gallery of Art
- Hubert Robert - The Large Staircase - Google Art Project.jpg
The Large Staircase (ca. 1761–65), 45 x 32.3 cm., Pen and ink, wash, watercolor, and chalk, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
- Young Artists in the Studio MET DP226754 (cropped).jpg
Young Artists in the Studio (ca.1763-65), re chalk, 35.2 x 41.2 cm., Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Robert Arch of Titus.jpg
Arch of Titus in Rome (1760s), watercolor, 35 x 49.5 cm., Czartoryski Museum
- Artist Sketching a Young Girl MET 1972.118.230 (cropped).jpg
Artist Sketching a Young Girl (ca. 1773), red chalk, 25.5 x 33.8 cm., Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Young Women in a Landscape with Architectural Fragments MET 59.23.70.jpg
Women in Landscape (ca. 1773), ink, wash, & chalk, 36.6 x 28.7 cm., Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Robert Boat journey.jpg
Boat Journey (1774), sanguine, 28.9 x 36.5 cm., National Museum in Warsaw
- HRobertBorgheseVase.jpg
Draughtsman of the Borghese Vase (ca. 1775), chalk, 36.5 x 29 cm., Museu de Belles Arts de València
- Figures in a Colonnade MET DP226757 (cropped).jpg
Figures in a Colonnade (ca. 1780), ink, wash, & chalk, 58.6 x 44 .7 cm., Metropolitan Museum of Art
- RobertPrison.jpg
Self Portrait in Prison (ca 1793–94), ink, wash, watercolor and chalk, 17.6 x 23.8 cm., Galerie Coatalem
Oil paintingsEdit
- Hubert Robert - The Old Bridge - 1957.34.1 - Yale University Art Gallery.jpg
The Old Bridge (1760), 76.2 x 100.3 cm., Yale University Art Gallery
- Robert Italian kitchen.jpg
Italian Kitchen (ca. 1760–67), 60 x 75 cm., National Museum in Warsaw
- Orator in Prison (Hubert Robert) - Nationalmuseum - 19613 (cropped).tif
Orator in Prison (1760s), 48 x 38 cm., Nationalmuseum
- Hubert Robert - View of Ripetta - WGA19603.jpg
A View of Ripetta (1766), 119 x 145 cm., Beaux-Arts de Paris
- Hubert Robert - The Fire of Rome - Google Art Project.jpg
The Fire of Rome (ca. 1771), 75.5 x 93 cm., Musée d'art moderne André Malraux
- Hubert Robert - L'École de chirurgie en construction (cropped).jpg
École de Chirurgie Under Construction (1773), 76 x 91.5 cm., Musée Carnavalet
- Hubert Robert - 1773 - Finding of the Laocoon.jpg
The Finding of the Laocoon (1773), 119.3 x 162.5 cm., Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
- Hubert Robert - Les Cascatelles de Tivoli - PPP2547 - Musée des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris (cropped).jpg
The Tivoli Waterfalls (1776), 50 x 74 cm., Petit Palais
- Hubert Robert - Studio of an Antiquities Restorer in Rome - Google Art Project (cropped).jpg
Studio of an Antiquities Restorer in Rome (1783), 101 x 143 cm., Toledo Museum of Art
- Hubert Robert - Flight of Galatea.jpg
Flight of Galatea (mid 1780s), 50 x: 42 cm., Hermitage Museum
- The Shipwreck (1780–1790), oil on canvas, 321.6 x 199.5 cm., Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts.jpg
Shipwreck (1780s), 322 x 199 cm., Worcester Art Museum
- Hubert Robert - L incendie de l Opera vue d'une croisée de l Académie de peinture place du Louvre.jpg
The Fire of the Paris Opera (1781), 123.5 × 171 cm., private collection
- Hubert Robert - The Landing Place - Art Institute of Chicago - 1787-88.jpg
The Landing Place (1787–88), 255 x 223 cm., Art Institute of Chicago
- Hubert Robert - The Fountains - Art Institute of Chicago - 1787-88.jpg
The Fountains (1787–88), 255 x 221 cm., Art Institute of Chicago
- Hubert Robert - The Old Temple - 1900.382 - Art Institute of Chicago.jpg
The Old Temple (1787–88), 255 x 223 cm., Art Institute of Chicago
- Hubert Robert - The Obelisk - Art Institute of Chicago - 1787-88.jpg
The Obelisk (1787–88), 255 x 223 cm., Art Institute of Chicago
- Hubert Robert - Fantastic View of Tivoli - 524-1955 - Saint Louis Art Museum.jpg
Fantastic View of Tivoli (1789), 241.3 x 190.8 cm., Saint Louis Art Museum
- The Bastille in the first days of its demolition, by Hubert Robert (cropped).jpg
The Bastille During the First Days of its Demolition (1789), 96 x 135 cm., Musée Carnavalet
- Hubert Robert - Neglected Statue.jpg
Neglected Statue (1790s), 40 x 31 cm., Hermitage Museum
- Hubert Robert 005.jpg
Girls Dancing Around an Obelisk (1798), 120 x 99 cm., Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
- Hubert Robert - Projet d'aménagement de la Grande Galerie du Louvre (1796).JPG
Project for the Transformation of the Grande Galerie du Louvre (1796), 115 x 145 cm., Louvre
- Louvre-peinture-francaise-p1020324.jpg
Imaginary View of the Grand Gallery of the Louvre in Ruins (1796), 114.5 x 146 cm., Louvre
- Hubert Robert - Römische Phantasievedute - 2537 - Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe.jpg
Roman Capriccio (1798 ), 94 x 117 cm., Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe
- Hubert Robert - Architectural Fantasy - 37.104 - Rhode Island School of Design Museum.jpg
Architectural Fantasy (ca. 1802–08),114 x 147.8 cm., Rhode Island School of Design Museum
- Hubert Robert (French - Demolition of the Château of Meudon - Google Art Project.jpg
Demolition of the Château of Meudon (1806), 113.3 x 146.8 cm., Getty Museum
References, notes and sourcesEdit
- References and notes
- Sources
- Adams, William Howard, The French Garden 1500–1800 (New York: Braziller) 1979.
- Huisman, Philippe, French Watercolours of the 18th Century (1969) London, Thames and Hudson Template:ISBN
- Wiebenson, Dora, The Picturesque Garden in France (Princeton University Press) 1978.
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- Sarah Catala. Les Hubert Robert de Besançon. Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 2013 [catalogue raisonné of drawings from public library and fine art museum of Besançon].
External linksEdit
- Joconde - Catalogue des Collections des Musées de France www.culture.gouv.fr (Ministère de la culture et de la communication) — List of the work of Robert (315 entries), French.