Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres was born in Montauban in
southern France on 29 August 1780, one of five surviving children whose father
Joseph, also an artist, was eager for his son to follow in his footsteps.
By the age of 12, he had been enrolled at art school in
Toulouse and before he even reached full manhood had already won awards for his
work, he would always be keen on winning prizes.
Although, he was raised during a period of great political
convulsion and social upheaval the events of the time and his experience of
them were rarely reflected in his art. Yet he was soon being spoken of as the
heir to Jacques-Louis David, who though still admired had long since been
politically ostracised and sent into exile, and Ingres agreed coming to see
himself as the defender of the neo-classical (exemplified in the mind of many by
David’s Oath of the Haratii) against the rise of romanticism in the arts
represented by his great rival Eugene Delacroix.
Indeed, he was considered so orthodox by some in the
artistic and literary salons of Paris and elsewhere that he was accused of
merely reinterpreting the great art of the past with nothing original to say,
an accusation little short of plagiarism.
It was in 1805, after he had moved to the Villa Medici in
Rome where he had a studio that he first became aware of the criticisms that
were circulating back in Franc and angrily remarked:
“The scoundrels, they waited until I was away before they
assassinated my reputation.”
Yet, though he remained largely uncontroversial in choice of
subject matter the techniques he adopted and the style that resulted are now
seen as essential precursors in the development of modern art,
particularly in
the portraiture for which he is best remembered now.
It wasn’t seen like that at the time and it remains
uncertain whether Ingres would have appreciated the legacy.
Yet unlike his rival Delacroix, who was always more beloved
of the artistic establishment than he was the people, Ingres popularity rarely
waned despite becoming a little too closely associated with the Orleanist
regime of Louis-Philippe which was overthrown in 1848.
Ingres died of pneumonia on 14 January 1867, after a long
life and career aged 86, more admired than he had been and no less popular.
He was interred in Pere Lachaise Cemetery.
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