Biography
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (ANG-grə; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassical painter. Ingres was influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic orthodoxy against the ascendant Romantic style. He was accomplished as a painter of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, but had more success with his delicately modeled portraits.
Born into a modest family in Montauban, he travelled to Paris to study in the studio of Jacques-Louis David. One of his fellow students, Étienne-Jean Delécluze, who later became an art critic, described Ingres as a student:
He was distinguished not just by the candor of his character and his disposition to work alone … he was one of the most studious … he took little part in the all the turbulent follies around him, and he studied with more perseverance than most of his co-disciples … All of the qualities which characterize today the talent of this artist, the finesse of contour, the true and profound sentiment of the form, and a modeling with extraordinary correctness and firmness, could already be seen in his early studies. While several of his comrades and David himself signaled a tendency toward exaggeration in his studies, everyone was struck by his grand compositions and recognized his talent.
He was admitted to the painting department of the École des Beaux-Arts in October 1799. In 1800 and 1801, he won the grand prize for figure painting for his paintings of male torsos. In 1802 he made his Salon debut, and won the Prix de Rome for his painting The Ambassadors of Agamemnon in the tent of Achilles. By the time he departed in 1806 for his residency in Rome, his close study of Italian and Flemish Renaissance masters—was already well developed. While working in Rome and subsequently Florence from 1806 to 1824, he regularly sent paintings to the Paris Salon, but these early works were met with mixed reviews. Receiving few commissions during this period for the history paintings, he changed focus to painting portraits.
He was finally recognized at the Salon in 1824, when his Raphaelesque painting, The Vow of Louis XIII, was met with acclaim, and Ingres was acknowledged as the leader of the Neoclassical school in France. Although the income from commissions for history paintings allowed him to paint fewer portraits, his Portrait of Monsieur Bertin marked his next popular success in 1833. The following year, his indignation at the harsh criticism of his ambitious composition The Martyrdom of Saint Symphorian caused him to return to Italy, where he assumed directorship of the French Academy in Rome in 1835. He returned to Paris for good in 1841. In his later years he painted new versions of many of his earlier compositions, a series of designs for stained glass windows, several important portraits of women, and The Turkish Bath, the last of his several Orientalist paintings of the female nude, which he finished at the age of 83.
Nationality:
French
Dates:
August 29, 1780 – January 14, 1867
Occupation:
Painter
Schools attended:
École des Beaux-Arts, Académie Royale de Peinture, Sculpture et Architecture, Toulouse
Taught at:
French Academy in Rome, École des Beaux-arts
Student of:
Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Pierre Vigan, Jean Briant, Guillaume-Joseph Roques
Teacher of:
Group / Movement:
Legion of Honor