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Alexandre Cabanel | |
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.jpg) Self-Portrait, 1852,Musée Fabre | |
| Born | (1823-09-28)28 September 1823 Montpellier, France |
| Died | 23 January 1889(1889-01-23) (aged 65) Paris, France |
| Education | François-Édouard Picot |
| Known for | Painting |
| Notable work | Birth of Venus |
| Movement | Academicism |
| Awards | Prix de Rome |
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Alexandre Cabanel (French:[alɛksɑ̃dʁ(ə)kabanɛl]; 28 September 1823 – 23 January 1889) was a Frenchpainter. He painted historical, classical and religious subjects in theacademic style.[1] He was also well known as a portrait painter. He wasNapoleon III's preferred painter[2] and, withGérôme andMeissonier, was one of "the three most successful artists of theSecond Empire."[3]
Cabanel was the son of a modest carpenter, and he began his apprenticeship at the Montpellier School of Fine Arts in the class of Charles Matet, curator of theMusée Fabre. Equipped with a scholarship, he moved to Paris in 1839.
Cabanel entered theÉcole des Beaux-Arts in Paris at the age of seventeen, in 1840, where he studied withFrançois-Édouard Picot.
After two failures, with the paintingsCincinnatus receiving the ambassadors of Rome, in 1843, andChrist in the Garden of Olives, in 1844, he won thePrix de Rome scholarship, in 1845 at the age of 22.[4] He would be a resident of theVilla Medici until 1850.
Cabanel was both a history painter and a genre painter, and he evolved over the years towards romantic themes, likeAlbaydé (1848), inspired byLes Orientales, byVictor Hugo (1829).
He received the insignia of knight of theLegion of Honor, in 1855.
Also in 1855, he married Marie-Clémentine Legrand, with whom he had three children. Legrand and two of the children died in 1867. He remarried in 1869, but his second wife also died just four years later.[5]
He gained more recognition withThe Birth of Venus, exhibited at the Salon of 1863, and which was immediately purchased byNapoleon III for his personal collection. The acclaimed painting entered theLuxembourg Museum, in 1881, and is now held at theMusée d'Orsay, in Paris. He signed a contract with the Goupil house for the marketing of engraved reproductions of this painting. There is a smaller replica, painted in 1875 for a banker, John Wolf, now at theMetropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City. It was offered to the museum by Wolf in 1893. The classical composition embodies ideals ofAcademic art: a mythological subject, graceful modeling, silky brushwork, and perfected forms. This style was perennially popular with collectors, even as when it was challenged by artists seeking a more realistic approach, such asGustave Courbet. He was also criticized by writers and critics likeÉmile Zola andJoris-Karl Huysmans, who were more open to the modern artistic tendencies.
Cabanel was elected a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in the 10th chair, in 1863. He was appointed professor at theÉcole des Beaux-Arts in 1864, where he taught until his death.[6] He was in the same year promoted to the rank of officer of theLegion of Honor.
Between 1868 and 1888, he was a member of the Salon jury seventeen times: "He was elected regularly to the Salon jury and his pupils could be counted by the hundred at the Salons. Through them, Cabanel did more than any other artist of his generation to form the character of thebelle époque French painting".[7] His refusal together withWilliam-Adolphe Bouguereau to allow theimpressionist painterÉdouard Manet, and other painters, to exhibit their work in the Salon of 1863 led to the establishment of theSalon des Refusés by the French government. Cabanel won the Great Medal of Honour at the Salons of 1865, 1867, and 1878.
The Salon jury was not liberal, they accepted and promoted only academic-style paintings with the intention of securing this art in the memory of the public for eternity.[8] Cabanel intervened in 1881 during the presentation ofPertuiset, Le chasseur de lions, byÉdouard Manet, and defended it by saying: "Gentlemen, there is not one among us who is capable of doing a head like that in the open air!". At theUniversal Exhibition of 1867, Cabanel was awarded the Knight's Cross of the First Class of the Order of Merit of Saint Michael of Bavaria, following hisParadise Lost, commissioned for the Maximilianeum, inMunich, byLudwig II of Bavaria. He was promoted to the rank of Commander of the Legion of Honor in 1884, and was elected associate of the Royal Academy of Belgium on 6 January 1887.
He died on 24 January 1889, in his hotel at 14 rue Alfred de Vigny, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. His funeral took place inParis, on 26 January 1889, in the Saint-Philippe du Roule church, then his body was transported toMontpellier, where it was buried in the Saint-Lazare on 28 January 1889. A monument was erected to him in 1892 by the architect Jean Camille Formigé, decorated with a marble bust by Paul Dubois and a sculpture,Regret, byAntonin Mercié.
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His pupils included:
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