David to Delacroix [Reprint 2014 ed.] 9780674332522, 9780674332515

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DAVID TO DELACROIX

)AVID TO )ELACROIX BY W A L T E R FRIEDLAENDER Translated by Robert

Goldwater

H A R V A R D U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS CAMBRIDGE LONDON

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MASSACHUSETTS

ENGLAND

Copyright • 1952 • by the President and Fellows of Harvard College Copyright renewed © 1980 by Louise Bourgeois and Jane Costello Goldberg 20

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ISBN 0-674-19401-2 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 52-5395 Printed in the United States of America

PREFACE

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I h e German edition of this book was published in 1930 as a volume in a series of philological handbooks destined for use in Colleges and universities. T h e special feature of the book is its emphasis on the historical structure of French painting from the time of David to that of Ingres and Delacroix. This most interesting and important period of French painting has been treated mostly by art critics w h o have specialized in the art and culture of the nineteenth Century and who reduced the art of the period to t w o main tendencies, classicism and romanticism. Such terms, however, are unsuitable to contrasts of style or technique, whether in painting or in literature, because they refer to different levels of aesthetic experience; the one implies an ideal of form directly or indirectly dependent upon the antique, while the other describes the mood or sentiment which a creative artist expresses through the medium of his work. One can very well speak of a romantic classicism, for example in certain works of Ingres or Girodet, or of a classicistic romanticism in such a painting as Delacroix's "Medea." Such terms tend to confuse rather than to clarify the artistic Situation of the period. T o my mind, a clearer idea of this Situation can be gained by studying, more than has been done in the past, the historical sources of the various stylistic and intellectual currents of the time. Naturally these sources are to be found, to a large extent, in the art of the preceding period, the eighteenth Century. I have therefore begun by outlining in an introduction (which because of lack of space is somewhat schematic) the main trends that lead up to David. Of equal importance, however, is the art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and significant parallels can be drawn between these periods and the early nmeteenth Century — parallels which are made particularly meaningful by the strongly and consciously retrospective element in the artistic intellect of the time from David to Delacroix. T h e art of David

PREFACE is largely based on that of Poussin, and Ingres proclaims his interest in Bronzino and his passionate concern with Raphael. Prud'hon was called the French Correggio with good reason, and Delacroix was an ardent follower of Rubens. Therefore, if I apply such terms as classic, mannerist, early baroque, and high baroque — terms which are generally applied to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries — to the art of the early nineteenth Century, it is because I believe that there are specific common denominators in the phases of these two periods and in the way in which these phases succeed one another. On the other hand, in tracing the historical developments, I have tried not to lose sight of the artistic integrity of the various artists who effected these developments, and it surely does not detract from the individuality of an artist to understand his work in an art-historical context. Indeed, an artist manifests his individuality partly through the force with which he reacts to his artistic inheritance. T h e present English translation is a recent revision by Dr. Robert Gold water of a translation he made in 1939. Except for minor corrections and omissions, it follows exactly the original German text. I am especially grateful to Dr. John Coolidge, Director of the Fogg Museum of Art in Cambridge, and to Dr. Sidney Freedberg of Wellesley College, without whose loving interest in the book this edition would never have been published. I would also like to thank Dr. Jane Costello, Mr. Irvin Lavin, and Mr. William Crelly for their enthusiastic assistance in preparing the manuscript for the press. I am greatly indebted to Mr. George Wildenstein, Mr. Richard Goetz, and Mr. Henry Mcllhenny for giving me photographs which I was unable to obtain elsewhere, and to the administrations of the following museums for permission to reproduce paintings from their collections: the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Metropolitan Museum of Art in N e w York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and especially the Fogg Museum, whose Photographie collection was generously placed at my disposal. WALTER

May 1952 VI

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CONTENTS INTRODUCTION

T H E E T H I C A L A N D F O R M A L BASES OF C L A S S I C I S M IN F R E N C H P A I N T I N G CHAPTER

i ONE

CLASSICISM A N D MINOR T R E N D S IN T H E A R T OF D A V I D

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CHAPTER

TWO

ULTRACLASSICISTS AND ANTICLASSICISTS IN T H E D A V I D F O L L O W I N G Gerard, Girodet,

Guerin, Les

36

Primitifs

CHAPTER

THREE

P R O T O B A R O Q U E T E N D E N C I E S IN T H E P E R I O D OF C L A S S I C I S M Prudhon,

51

Gros

CHAPTER

FOUR

T H E T R A N S F O R M A T I O N OF C L A S S I C I S M IN T H E A R T OF I N G R E S

67 CHAPTER

FIVE

E A R L Y B A R O Q U E A N D R E A L I S M IN T H E A R T OF G E R I C A U L T

92 CHAPTER

SIX

R O M A N T I C H I G H B A R O Q U E IN T H E A R T OF D E L A C R O I X

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ILLUSTRATIONS 1. D A V I D . The Oath of the Horatii. Louvre {Archives Photographiques). 2. D A V I D . Antiochus and Stratonice. Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris (photographer unknown). 3. D A V I D . Belisarius Asking Alms. Lille {Archives Photographiques). 4. D A V I D . Socrates Drinking the Hentlock. Metropolitan Museum of Art. 5. D A V I D . Study for the Oath of the Horatii. Louvre (Archives Photographiques). 6. D A V I D . Paris and Helen. Louvre (Alinari). 7. D A V I D . Brutus and His Dead Sons. Louvre (Archives Photographiques). 8. D A V I D . The Rape of the Sabines. Louvre (Archives Photographiques). 9. D A V I D . Study for The Oath of the Tennis Court. Fogg Museum of Art, Winthrop Collection. 10,11. D A V I D . Studies for The Oath of the Tennis Court. Versailles (Archives Photographiques); Fogg Museum of Art, Winthrop Collection. 12. D A V I D . The Death of Lepeletier. Engraving by Tardieu. 13. D A V I D . The Death of Bara. Avignon (Bulloz). 14. D A V I D . The Death of Marat. Brüssels (Archives Photographiques). 15. D A V I D . Napoleon Crowning the Empress Josephine (Le Sacre). Louvre (Archives Photographiques). 16,17. D A V I D . Studies for The Coronation of Napoleon. Louvre (Archives Photographiques); Besangon (Bulloz). 18. D A V I D . Detail of Napoleon Distributing the Eagles. Versailles (Archives Photographiques). 19. D A V I D . M. de Seriziat. Louvre (Archives Photographiques). 20. D A V I D . Mme. Pecoul. Louvre (Braun). 21. D A V I D . Pope Pius VIL Louvre ( photograph by National Gallery of Art, Washington). 22. D A V I D . Mme. Recamier. Louvre (Archives Photographiques).

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ILLUSTRATIONS 23. D A V I D . View of the Luxembourg. Louvre (Archives Photographtques). 24. G E R A R D . Cupid and Psyche. Louvre {Archives Photographiques). 25. G E R A R D . Isabey and His Daughter. Louvre {Braun). 26. G I R O D E T . The Entombment of Atala. Louvre {Archives Photographiques). 27. G I R O D E T . Mlle. Lange as Danae. Wildenstein & Co., Inc. 28. G U E R I N . The Retum of Marius Sextus. Louvre {Archives Photographiques). 29. G U E R I N . Study for Phaedra and Hippolytus. Fogg Museum of Art, Winthrop Collection. 30. P R U D H O N . Study for The Vengeance of Ceres. Musee Bonnat, Bayonne {Archives Photographiques). 31. P R U D H O N . Vengeance and Justice. Louvre {Archives Photographiques). 32. P R U D H O N . Empress Josephine. Louvre {Braun). 33. G R O S . Study for Napoleon at Arcole. Wildenstein & Co., Inc. 34. G R O S . Napoleon Visiting the Plague-Stricken at Jaffa. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 35. G R O S . Detail of Napoleon at Eylau. Louvre {Bulloz). 36. I N G R E S . Venus Wounded by Diomedes. Private collection, Basel {photograph from Wildenstein & Co., Inc.). 37. I N G R E S . Achilles and the Greek Ambassadors. Ecole des BeauxArts, Paris {Bulloz). 38. I N G R E S . Jupiter and Thetis. Aix-en-Provence {Archives Photographiques). 39. I N G R E S . Self-Portrait. Chantilly {Archives Photographiques). 40. I N G R E S . Mme. Riviere. Louvre {Archives Photographiques). 41. I N G R E S . Mme. Aymon, "Zelie." Ronen {A. C. Cooper). 42. I N G R E S . M. Granet. Aix-en-Provence {Braun). 43. I N G R E S . Mme. Devaugay. Chantilly {Archives Photographiques). 44. I N G R E S . Mme. de Tournon. Henry P. Mcllhenny, Philadelphia. 45. I N G R E S . Study for Virgil Reading to Augustus. Brüssels {Giraudon). 46. I N G R E S . The Sistine Chapel. Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington {photograph from Wildenstein (t Co., Inc.). 47. I N G R E S . La Grande Odalisque. Louvre {Archives Photographiques). 48. I N G R E S . The Golden Age. Fogg Museum of Art, Winthrop Collection. 49. I N G R E S . The Turkish Bath. Louvre {Archives Photographiques).

ILLUSTRATIONS 50. G E R I C A U L T . Officer of the Imperial Guard. Louvre (Archives Photographiques). 51. G E R I C A U L T . The Wounded Cuirassier. Louvre (Archives Photographiques). 52. G E R I C A U L T . Tfee Carabinier. Ronen {photographer unknown). 53. G E R I C A U L T . Study for The Corso dei Bärberi. Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 54. G E R I C A U L T . The Cattle Market. Fogg Museum of Art, Winthrop Collection. 55. G E R I C A U L T . Head of a Negro. Rouen (W. Gernsheim). 56. G E R I C A U L T . An Execution. Rouen (W. Gernsheim). 57. G E R I C A U L T . Study of a Dead Man. Owner unknown (photograph from Richard Goetz). 58, 59,60. G E R I C A U L T . Studies for The Raft of the Medusa. Rouen (W. Gernsheim). 61. G E R I C A U L T . The Raft of the Medusa. Louvre (Archives Photographiques). 62. G E R I C A U L T . A Jockey. Wildenstein