The “Venus Anadyomene” was finished in 1848; in 1851 Ingres painted his “Jupiter and Antiope,” and two years later he painted his “Apotheosis of Napoleon I.,” a large subject for the decoration of one of the ceilings of the Hôtel de Ville, at Paris. This was unfortunately destroyed by fire in the troubled days of the Commune in 1871. In 1854 his “Joan of Arc assisting at the Consecration of Charles VII.” was painted for the gallery of Versailles.
We have now reached the last years of the artist’s laborious life. They were as busy as his earlier years, but they were crowned with honour and glory. In 1855 all Europe flocked to Paris to see the Universal Exhibition. The life-work of Ingres was gathered together in a special gallery. It produced an immense impression. All criticisms of detail fell before the magnificent affirmation of the artist’s individual ideal. One of the grand medals was given to him by the unanimous votes of the artists, and the Emperor made him an officer of the Legion of Honour.
Then, in the following year, as if to crown his career by the evocation of a supreme masterpiece, Ingres finished the “Source,” a subject which had been begun at the same time as the “Venus Anadyomene.” This beautiful figure was not a passing vision which had animated the brush of the aged painter; it was indeed the daughter of his dreams, an emanation of his own soul, the slow growth of long meditations, and which, at last, incarnated itself in an immortal form. This calm and adorable figure seems a souvenir of our long-lost innocence. That is perhaps why we love it so, and why we bless the artist to whom we owe this divine dream.
Ingres died in 1867. He had finished his task, had spoken the last word of his austere but profoundly human genius.
Ingres has been spoken of as an ancient Greek lost and bewildered in our modern times. Such a view of his character is misleading. Like all the great creators, he expressed the aspirations of his race and his times. He was not only the child of his century and his country, but he represented them both in their classic reaction and in their impulse towards Romanticism. But the two tendencies were so nicely balanced in his temperament that he offended the extremists of both parties. He paid in his lifetime for his detachment from parties, for his exalted aims and sublime courage, but he reaps his reward from posterity. The creator of the immortal figures of Œdipus, the Odalisque, Angelica, Stratonice, and the Source to-day takes unquestioned rank among the great masters not only of French but of European art.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The authoritative French accounts of Ingres’ life and work (from which the foregoing sketch has been compiled) are:—
Comte Henri Delaborde.—Ingres, sa vie, ses travaux, sa doctrine (1870).
Charles Blanc.—Ingres (1870).
Henry Lapauze.—L’Œuvre de Ingres (in “Melanges sur l’Art Français,” 1905).
Jules Momméja.—Ingres (“Les Grands Artistes” series).
T. de Wyzewa.—L’Œuvre peint de Jean-Dominique Ingres (1907).
Boyer d’Agen.—Ingres d’apres une Correspondence inédite (1909).
The plates are printed by Bemrose & Sons, Ltd., Derby and London
The text at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh