French Painting of the 19th Century in the National Gallery of Art

by Grose Evans

Cover illustration (see description on [page 42]):

Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)
A Girl with a Watering Can
Canvas. 39½ × 28¾ inches. Dated 1876
Chester Dale Collection

French Painting
of the 19th Century
in the
National Gallery of Art

by
Grose Evans
Curator of Extension Services

Washington, D. C.

Copyright 1959
Publications Fund
National Gallery of Art
Washington, D. C.
Revised 1967

Designed, Engraved, and Printed
in the United States of America by
The Beck Engraving Company

French Painting: 19th Century

The story of French painters during the nineteenth century is an exciting one, colored by personal rivalries and revolutions in taste. In the face of an indifferent or jeering public, artists often had to make great sacrifices to achieve the sincere expression of their ideals. Firmly established academic painters bitterly opposed all young artists who tried to create new styles, and the inertia of popular taste lent such authority to the Academy that artists could only be original at their own peril.

The academic style grew out of the classical idealism of Jacques-Louis David ([page 13]). He rose to fame during the French Revolution (1789-95) by producing pictures with propaganda content and attained great prominence as “the painter of the people.” Son of a Paris tradesman, David had been fortunate enough to study painting in the French Royal Academy. After four failures and an attempted suicide, he won the Prix de Rome and in 1774 was able to go to Italy, which was then considered the fountainhead of art. There, during a ten-year stay, he reacted violently against the gay, trivial style of painting that French aristocrats had loved. Idolizing the ancient statues he saw in Rome, he introduced a powerful Neo-Classical style and, after his return to France, he reorganized the Academy to sanction only a sober and “elevating” imitation of classical art. When Napoleon became emperor, in 1804, he appointed David his court painter and commissioned a series of huge pictures illustrating imperial ceremonies. However, soon after the Bourbon monarchy was restored, in 1814, David was exiled to Brussels, where he spent his last years.