Bernard Picart orPicard (11 June 1673 – 8 May 1733), was a French draughtsman,engraver, andbook illustrator inAmsterdam, who showed an interest in cultural and religious habits.
Picart was born inrue Saint-Jacques, Paris as son of Etienne Picart, a famous engraver. In 1689, he studied drawing and architecture at theAcadémie royale de peinture et de sculpture. He was taught byCharles le Brun, along withBenoît Audran the Elder,Sébastien Leclerc andAntoine Coypel.[1] In 1696 he wintered in Antwerp, where he was well-received. He stayed in Amsterdam for more than a year and had commissions before returning to France at the end of 1698.[2][3] He took over his father's workshop. From 1702 on, he was editor ofplaywrights written by himself or the other members ofNil volentibus arduum.[4][5]
After his wife, Cloudina Pros, the daughter of a bookseller, and their children died, he settled inThe Hague together withProsper Marchand in January 1710.[6] There Picart, Marchand andCharles Levier belonged to a "radical Huguenot coterie", who studied the works ofJohn Locke, which promoted the separation ofchurch and state.[7][a] They joined theWalloon church but were influenced byJean Claude andPierre Bayle who both fled to theDutch Republic in earlier years.[4][5][8] Picart accepted a commission to draw prints for the Bible.[4][5] He and Marchand moved to Amsterdam in 1711 (later being joined by his fatherÉtienne Picart (le Romain).
In April 1712 he married Anna Vincent (1684–1736) inHaarlem, the marriage was assisted by her father Ysbrand Vincent (1642–1718) who had initially disagreed with the marriage. Ysbrand was a rich paper seller, who moved to France but fled in 1686.[9]Levinus Vincent became his uncle, aMennonite who owned acabinet of curiosities in Haarlem. Picart moved in with his father-in-law and designed severalbook frontispieces. Picart lived across the Old Lutheran Church but also close to a Mennonite Church.[4][b] In May 1713 the couple had male twins, who both died within a few weeks; he portrayed them both. Picart became acitizen, joined the guild and published a book about his teacher Charles Le Brun.[4][5] His three daughters were baptized inWesterkerk. Picart may have had a better understanding of theDutch language.
He collaborated withCornelis de Bruyn on the frontispiece ofReizen over Moskovie, door Persie en Indie, published in 1718 asVoyages de Corneille le Brun par la Moscovie, en Perse, et aux Indes Occidentales. At some time Picart opened an engraving school. His pupils includedJacob Folkema,Jakob van der Schley (who portrayed him posthumously),Pieter Tanjé andFrançois Morellon la Cave, who all used his drawings for engravings. According toRKD,Johann Philipp Endelich (?–1760) was also a pupil. In 1723/1726 Anna Yver, his mother-in-law and two of her children lived atRokin; Picart may have used most floors for teaching drawing and engraving or storing paper. Picart was buried in the nearbyWalloon Church, Amsterdam on 13 May 1733.
In 1724, he worked withPhilipp von Stosch, a Prussian antiquarian, whoseGemmæ Antiquæ Cælatæ (Pierres antiques graveés), Picart's engravings reproduced 70 antique carved hardstones such asonyx,jasper andcarnelian from European collections, a volume of inestimable value to antiquarians and historians. His most famous work isCérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde, appearing from 1723 to 1743 and in collaboration with Jean Frédéric Bernard, a successful author and publisher who promotedreligious tolerance andgallicanism. Because of the many prints it also seems he sympathized withJansenists, theArmenian Apostolic Church andCollegiants. In 1728Les Césars de l'empereur Julien, traduits du grec par feu Mr. leBaron de Spanheim, avec des remarques & des preuves, enrichies de plus de 300 médailles, & autres anciens monumens, gravés par Bernard Picart le Romain was published. In 1729 he collaborated withLouis Fabricius Dubourg.
In 1731 he published a reprint originally by his father (Le Romain).[4][5] After his death the widow ordered her three daughters to keep his collection of drawings together but sell the prints at an auction and thecopperplates in Paris.[4][5] In 1734 she publishedImpostures innocentes, ou recueil d'estampes d'après divers peintres illustres tels que Raphaël, Le Guide, Carlo Maratta, Le Poussin, Rembrandt, etc., gravées à leur imitation et selon le goût particulier de chacun d'eux, et accompagnées d'un discours sur les préjugés de certains curieux touchant la gravure, par Bernard Picart, dessinateur et graveur, avec son éloge historique et le catalogue de ses ouvrages, Veuve de Bernard Picart, Amsterdam. She published a book by Pierre Lebrun aboutsuperstition with his engravings:Superstitions anciennes et modernes, préjugés vulgaires qui ont induit les peuples à des usages et à des pratiques contraires à la religion, avec des figures qui représentent ces pratiques, chez Jean-Frédéric Bernard, Amsterdam, 1733-1736. His widow was buried inNieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam. Her inventory (on 12 March 1736) mentioned around 400portfolios with copperplates, books, drawings, paper, 54 paintings (not specified), jewellery andbonds.[11][12] The website of theRijksmuseum in Amsterdam has more than 2,000 works online by Bernard Picart.[13]
Most of his work was book-illustrations, for which he collaborated with local artists likeGerard Hoet andArnold Houbraken. The illustrations were used in various publications including the Figures de la Bible (1720) and the Taferelen der voornaamste geschiedenissen van het Oude en Nieuwe Testament (1728). The latter was a picture bible comprising 214 large engravings of whichGilliam van der Gouwen had engraved 41.[14] From 1720 Picart collaborated on theCérémonies with the son of a Protestant ministerJean-Frédéric Bernard [fr], with a commitment toreligious toleration.Jonathan I. Israel[15] callsCérémonies "an immense effort to record the religious rituals and beliefs of the world in all their diversity as objectively and authentically as possible".[16]
They put religion in comparative perspective, offering images and analysis of Jews, Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, the peoples of the Orient and the Americas, Protestants, deists, freemasons, and assorted sects. Despite condemnation by the Catholic Church, the work was a resounding success. For the next century it was copied or adapted, but without the context of its original radicalism and its debt to clandestine literature, English deists, and the philosophy of Spinoza.[17]
Although Picart had never left Europe, he relied on accounts by those who had and had access to a collection of Indian sculpture.[2] The original French edition ofCérémonies comprises ten volumes of text and 266 engravings.
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This was an illustrated book ofOvid'sMetamorphoses more popular fables published in 1733 in Dutch (Tempel der zanggodinnen, vertoond in LX heerlijke kunststukken, behelzende alle de voornaemste geschiedenissen van de Fabel-Oudheid), in 1738 in English (The Temple of the Muses, or, the principal histories of fabulous antiquity), and in 1742 in French (Le Temple des Muses, orné de LX tableaux où sont représentés les événemens les plus remarquables de l'antiquité fabuleuse), by Zacharias Chatelain. The engravings had captions in French, English, German, and Dutch. The artists involved wereMichel de Marolles, Bernard Picart,Jacques Favereau,Abraham van Diepenbeeck, andCornelis Bloemaert. A facsimile of the Dutch version was published in 1968.
Media related toBernard Picart at Wikimedia Commons
Works by or aboutBernard Picart atWikisourceBernard Picart and Jean Frederic Bernard'sReligious Ceremonies and Customs of the World onUCLA website.
