Nicolas-André Monsiau | |
|---|---|
 Self-portrait of Monsiau in 1827 | |
| Born | 1754 Paris, France |
| Died | May 31, 1837(1837-05-31) (aged 83) Paris, France |
| Movement | Neoclassicism |
Nicolas-André Monsiau (1754 – 31 May 1837) was a Frenchhistory painter and a refined draughtsman[1] who turned to book illustration to supplement his income when theFrench Revolution disrupted patronage. HisPoussiniste drawing style and coloring marked his conservative art in the age ofNeoclassicism.
His training at the school of theAcadémie royale de peinture et de sculpture, Paris, was under the direction ofJean-François Pierre Peyron. An early patron, the marquis de Corberon, paid for a sojourn at Rome, where he studied at theFrench Academy in Rome from 1776. On his return to Paris, he was unable to exhibit in the annual Paris salons, which were closed to all but those who had been received ("agréé") by the Académie or were members, under theAncien Régime. Instead he found an outlet in the smallerSalon de la corréspondance, where in 1782 he showed atenebristPiquant effect of the light of a lamp.
Two years later he was received at the Académie with a historical subject,Alexander taming Bucephalus and was made a member 3 October 1787, his second attempt, on the strength ofThe Death ofAgis. The influence ofJacques-Louis David, an acquaintance from Monsiau's days in Rome, is most vividly represented by Monsiau'sUlysses, after returning to his palace and slaying Penelope's suitors, orders the women to remove the corpses (1791 Salon), where the action is played out in a shallow frieze-like space defined by a colonnade parallel to the picture plane.[2]
In his best-known painting,Zeuxis choosing among the most beautiful girls of Crotona, shown at the Salon of 1791,[3] Monsiau illustrates an anecdote of the painterZeuxis, recorded inPliny'sNatural History, that exemplifies an essential aspect of the Classical approach to artistic creation, in the artist's refining an ideal Art by selecting from among the lesser beauties of Nature.
Monsiau's great public commission was a commemoration of the occasion on 26 January 1802, at which Napoleon delivered an authoritarian constitution to theCisalpine Republic at a convocation of notables (theconsulta) at Lyon.François Gérard had turned down the commission, preferring to continue his series of individual portraits of the Bonapartes. Monsiau received the commission in 1806; the finished painting was exhibited at theSalon of 1808 and was installed at theTuileries the following year.
Monsiau was among the first history painters to depict scenes from modern history that were not commemorations of battles. He showedMolière readingTartuffe at the house ofNinon de Lenclos at theSalon of 1802. It was engraved byJean-Louis Anselin. His painting of Louis XVI giving instructions to the sea captain-explorerLa Pérouse before his attempted circumnavigation was exhibited at the Salon of 1817 and was purchased for the recently restoredLouis XVIII.
His portrayal of a sensational episode in which an escaped lion from the Grand Ducal menagerie in Florence had dropped a child it had picked up, without harming it, was exhibited at theSalon of 1801 and is conserved in theLouvre.
Among his pupils was the portrait draughtsman Louis Letronne (1790–1842), whose pencil portrait ofLudwig van Beethoven is iconic.
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