This portrait represents the famous “Bertin ainé, the director of the Journal des Débats.” It is signed “J. Ingres, pinxit 1832,” and was exhibited at the Salon of 1833.
The “Œdipus” was followed, in 1808, by the “Seated Bather” (now in the Louvre); in 1811, by “Jupiter and Thétis” (now at the Museum of Aix), a curiously Flaxman-like design; in 1812, by the “Dream of Ossian” (now at Montauban); and in 1814, by a scene of real life, “The Pope officiating among the Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel” (now in the Louvre). In this marvellous picture the artist has for once avoided the painful task of invention which he habitually imposed upon himself. He abandoned himself completely to the imperious suggestion of what was actually before his eyes. The truth, life, and richness of colour and tone of this little picture have led some of his recent admirers to speak of it as the most complete and perfectly balanced of all the artist’s works.
The “Grande Odalisque,” exhibited at the Salon of 1819, but painted in 1814, brought to a close for the time the admirable series of nude female figures which the artist had begun during his first years in Rome. His wonderful sketches of the “Venus Anadyomene” and the “Source” had already been painted, but the canvases remained unfinished in his studio, the first till 1848, the second till 1858.
His love of female beauty reveals itself again in the principal figure of the picture he sent to the Salon in 1819. This was the “Roger delivering Angelica,” a scene borrowed from the tenth song of Ariosto’s “Roland Furieux.” The picture is now in the Louvre. The young knight, mounted on a hippogriff, pierces with his lance a marine monster who was about to devour the beautiful young woman who is chained to the rocks. The figure of the young knight, his curious steed, and the strange monster which is being killed, provoked the anger and ridicule of the Academic party. In its quaint details the influence of Perugino and of the earlier Florentine and Tuscan painters was clearly noticeable. This was one of the first signs in nineteenth-century art of the Gothic revival and of that stream of tendency which came afterwards to be described as pre-Raphaelitism. The epithet “Gothic” was freely used as a term of reproach against Ingres’ picture. But the lovely figure of Angelica was a distinct creation of the painter’s own genius.
In the “Francesca da Rimini” of the same year (now in the Museum of Angers) the same pre-Raphaelite tendencies are even more strongly pronounced. The figures of the two lovers might easily have been designed by Rossetti or Madox Brown.
All these works in which the master’s genius had approved itself with so much originality and fire had left their author to vegetate in poverty and obscurity, while the mediocrities around him had risen rapidly towards fortune and celebrity. Ingres was now anxious to return to Paris, but his meagre resources would not allow it. Then, tired of his hardships, and feeling that the social atmosphere of Rome was not favourable to him, he rejoined his friend Bartolini at Florence, hoping thus, among new surroundings, to re-establish his compromised career. His hopes were falsified. The four years passed in Florence (1820-1824) brought him only a fresh supply of hardships and mortifications. Less hospitable than Rome, Florence brought him only two commissions for portraits, those of M. and Mme. Leblanc (1823-1824); but it was here that he met M. de Pastoret, who was instrumental in getting him the commission which brought the artist his first striking and definitive success. M. de Pastoret was so pleased with Ingres’ “Entry of Charles V. into Paris” (painted in 1821) that he obtained for him a commission from the Minister of the Interior for a large picture of “The Vow of Louis XIII.” for the Cathedral of Montauban. This was begun in Florence in 1821 and finished in 1824, in which year it figured in the Salon of Paris. It was one of his pictures with which Ingres was most satisfied. It is also one of the first in which the influence of Raphael, which was to play such a large part in all his future work, is conspicuous. In a letter written in 1821, Ingres said that he was sparing no pains to make the picture “Raphaelesque and his own.” There is really more of Raphael in it than Ingres. The general arrangement of the design reminds one at once of Raphael’s “Transfiguration,” “The Sistine Madonna,” and the “Mass of Bolsena.” The figure of the Madonna is a sort of amalgam of Raphael’s various Madonnas. There is also an evident want of faith and religious enthusiasm in the picture. It marked the subjection of the artist to the Academical party which he had fought till then with so much violence and bitterness. The public which had frowned upon his vigorously personal and original works hailed this able imitation with enthusiasm. The master’s period of probation was at an end, and he returned in triumph to Paris to become the leader of the Academic party against the rising tide of Romanticism.
Ingres’ life was henceforward free from the material cares which had hampered his early career. The Parisians declared that such a picture as the “Vow of Louis XIII.” was too good to be buried in the provinces. The State wanted to retain it for Notre Dame or Val-de-Grace, and offered the artist a much larger sum of money for it than had been agreed upon. But Ingres refused these flattering offers. He was determined that Montauban should have it as an offering of his filial affection. The picture was taken there from Paris. The artist was entertained at a banquet given by the Municipality. Flattering speeches were made, and the artist departed with the cheers of his admirers ringing in his ears. And then the Archbishop, objecting to the nakedness of the infant Jesus and the two amorini holding the tablet, refused to permit the picture to be brought into the Cathedral. The artist’s friends were indignant; Ingres himself was furious. But prayers and threats could not move the Archbishop. It was only when large gilt fig-leaves had been placed to cover up the innocent nakedness of the charming little figures that he would allow the canvas to be hung in his church.
In 1824 Ingres was nominated Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. In 1825 he was elected to the Institute. Charles X. commissioned him to paint his portrait in the royal robes, and to decorate one of the ceilings of the Louvre. At the end of 1829 he was made professor at the École des Beaux-arts.
PLATE VI.—CHÉRUBINI
(In the Louvre)