Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) was a pupil of David. Having
gained the Prix de Rome in 1801, he did not leave for Italy until 1806,
but spent the next eighteen years in Rome and Florence, returning to
Paris in 1824. Although Ingres was brought up in the cold tradition
of the David school, he had a much clearer perception of the true
spirit of Greek art than his master. When he became acquainted with
the work of Raphael in Rome, he found it the very acme of perfection,
and henceforth frankly strove to emulate that master, seeking to
arrive at an eclectic ideal of the human form which in its dogmatic
rule of the proportions that constitute absolute beauty, allowed none
of the accents and variations which make for life and character.
Himself greater than his theories, Ingres achieved that perfection
of grace and beauty in his deservedly famous _The Spring_ (No. 422,
Plate XLVIII.), one of the few “gems” in the Salle Duchâtel, and in
the very Raphaelesque _Odalisque_ (No. 422B), which was purchased in
1899 from the Princesse de Sagan for £2400. On the other hand, the
imposition of an inflexible, rigid ideal of form did incalculable harm
to his numerous and less gifted followers, in whom every spark of
individuality was extinguished by the tyranny of the dogma.
Yet Ingres, when he applied himself to portraiture, was as
uncompromising a realist as Holbein, of whose sensitive, subtle drawing
and plastic modelling, without the introduction of entirely unnecessary
shiny high lights, we are forcibly reminded by the _Portrait of
the Painter’s Friend, M. Bochet_ (No. 428A). Something of the same
perfection of modelling, suggested rather by the sensitive contour than
clearly stated by pronounced lights and shadows, is to be noticed in
the nude figure of _The Odalisque_, and in the creamy white drapings
of the oval _Portrait of Mme. Rivière_ (No. 427). Perhaps his best
portrait at the Louvre is the one of _M. Bertin, Founder of the Journal
des Débats_ (No. 428B), a masterpiece of character painting, in which
the marvellously drawn fleshy hands, with their tapering fingers, are
as expressive as the fine head. This portrait was acquired in 1897 for
the sum of £3200.
The less admirable side of Ingres’s talent is illustrated by the
circular composition of the _Virgin of the Host_ (No. 416), a
crude scheme of “Sassoferrato blue” and red, on entirely conventional
lines; and by the _Apotheosis of Homer_ (No. 417), a tame Raphaelesque
design in which Homer is seen enthroned in the centre, with allegorical
figures of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ seated on the steps of the throne,
and a winged goddess placing a laurel wreath on his head. To the left
of the central group are the figures of Hesiod, Æschylus, Apelles,
Raphael, Virgil, Dante, Tasso, Corneille, and Poussin; to the right,
Pindar, Plato, Socrates, Alexander, Camoens, Racine, Molière, and
Fénelon. There is a touch of the grotesque in the combination of rather
mechanical dry portraiture with trite allegory that constitutes the
design of the terribly cracked _Portrait of the Composer Cherubini_
(No. 418). His failings as a colourist are most aggressively obvious in
the _Christ handing the Keys to St. Peter_ (No. 415). Ingres died in
Paris on the 14th January 1867.
[Illustration:
PLATE XLVIII.—JEAN AUGUSTE DOMINIQUE INGRES
(1780-1867)