Though not entirely detached from the ruling school of the period,
Pierre Prud’hon (1758-1823) occupies a unique position among his
contemporaries. Having absolved his preliminary studies at Dijon, he
became the pupil of the old masters—of Correggio and Leonardo—first
in Paris and then in Rome, where he worked for seven years before
definitely settling at Paris in 1789. To his sympathy with the
Italian masters he owed that mellowness of colour and understanding
of chiaroscuro which escaped the grasp of the Davidists. He was a
real _painter_ as distinguished from the classicist _draughtsmen_ of
the official school. Even if it is impossible to share to-day the
enthusiasm at one time evoked by the somewhat grotesque allegory,
_Justice and Divine Vengeance pursuing Crime_ (No. 747), this picture,
which was intended for the Palais de Justice, rises immeasurably above
the average of the “imaginative” paintings produced by Prud’hon’s
contemporaries.
Vastly superior as regards pictorial quality and the whole conception,
is the _Abduction of Psyche by Zephyrus_ (No. 756). In the
_Crucifixion_ (No. 744), his last picture, Prud’hon rises to telling
dramatic effectiveness of colour, and heralds the advent of Delacroix.
But the most masterly of his seventeen paintings at the Louvre is the
magnificent _Portrait of a Young Man_ (No. 753), which the Louvre was
fortunate enough to secure for £35 in 1895. It is a strangely living
evocation of a personality, searching, intimate, and mysterious—a
portrait not so much of the superficial features, but of the inner life
of the sitter. The large _Portrait of the Empress Joséphine_ (No. 751)
suffers from comparison with this masterpiece. The pose is affected,
the background dingy, and the red of the shawl introduces a harsh and
disconnected note of colour.