A note above his studio door proclaimed that he drew like Michelangelo and used colour like Titian. A small selection of works leading to his breakthrough in 1548.
narrative
After the huge death toll of the war, including 2 major painters, a week in Paris in May resulted in a further 7,000 deaths, and the destruction of public buildings. Hardly a painter in France wasn’t affected.
Paris was under siege from September 1870 to the end of January 1871. Painters commanded its defenders, and showed its distress.
In the late 19th century, painting was centred on Paris. But in 1870-71, the city was all but destroyed after a long siege, in the Franco-Prussian War. The story told in paintings.
Several pro-Empire paintings, including the story of Cleopatra’s seduction of Caesar, as the Suez Canal was being built. Then his most famous painting of all: Pollice Verso.
In the first few years of his career, he was commissioned to paint a series showing stories from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. They are simply brilliant.
In 3 years, he swung from conventional to highly novel narrative, covering themes of assassination, cynicism, prostitution, and looking.
His grand spectacle of The Age of Augustus was brave, but less successful than more modest paintings of Russian soldiers, or a comic duel.
Behind his traditional narrative paintings are his views on the Third Republic, the slaughter of the Paris communards in 1871, and the Dreyfus affair.
Vociferous opponent of Impressionism, hugely successful and popular, he taught more than 2,000 pupils. The start of a systematic account of his narrative paintings.
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