Théodore Chassériau | |
|---|---|
 A self-portrait of Chassériau painted at the age of 16 | |
| Born | (1819-09-20)September 20, 1819 El Limón, Samaná, Santo Domingo |
| Died | October 8, 1856(1856-10-08) (aged 37) Paris, France |
| Citizenship | French |
| Education | Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres |
| Movement | Romanticism;Orientalism |
Théodore Chassériau (French pronunciation:[teɔdɔʁʃaseʁjo];Spanish:Teodoro Chasseriau; September 20, 1819 – October 8, 1856) was aDominican-born FrenchRomanticpainter noted for hisportraits, historical and religious paintings, allegorical murals, andOrientalist images inspired by his travels toAlgeria. Early in his career he painted in aNeoclassical style close to that of his teacherJean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, but in his later works he was strongly influenced by the Romantic style ofEugène Delacroix. He was a prolific draftsman, and made a suite of prints to illustrateShakespeare'sOthello. The portrait he painted at the age of 15 ofProsper Marilhat makes Chassériau the youngest painter exhibited at theLouvre museum.[1]
Chassériau was born inEl Limón, Samaná, in the Spanish colony ofSanto Domingo (now theDominican Republic).[2] His fatherBenoît Chassériau was a French adventurer who had arrived in Santo Domingo in 1802 to take an administrative position in what was until 1808 a French colony.[3] Theodore's mother, Maria Magdalena Couret de la Blagniére, was the daughter of amulatto landowner born inSaint-Domingue (nowHaiti). In December 1820 the family left Santo Domingo forParis, where the young Chassériau soon showed precocious drawing skill. He was accepted into the studio ofJean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres in 1830, at the age of eleven, and became the favorite pupil of the greatclassicist, who regarded him as his truest disciple.[4] (An account that may be apocryphal has Ingres declaring "Come, gentlemen, come see, this child will be the Napoleon of painting.")[5]
After Ingres left Paris in 1834 to become director of theFrench Academy in Rome, Chassériau fell under the influence ofEugène Delacroix, whose brand of painterly colorism was anathema to Ingres. Chassériau first exhibited at theParis Salon of 1836, and was awarded a third-place medal in the category ofhistory painting.[6] In 1840 Chassériau travelled to Rome and met with Ingres, whose bitterness at the direction his student's work was taking led to a decisive break. While in Italy, Chassériau made landscape sketches and studied Renaissancefrescoes.[7]
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Among the chief works of his early maturity areSusanna and the Elders andVenus Anadyomene (both 1839),Diana Surprised byActaeon (1840),Andromeda Chained to the Rock by the Nereids (1840), andThe Toilette of Esther (1841), all of which reveal a very personal ideal in depicting the female nude.[8] Chassériau's major religious paintings from these years,Christ on theMount of Olives (a subject he treated in 1840 and again in 1844) andThe Descent from the Cross (1842), received mixed reviews from the critics; among the artist's champions wasThéophile Gautier. In 1843, Chassériau painted murals depicting the life ofSaint Mary of Egypt in theChurch of Saint-Merri in Paris, the first of several commissions he received to decorate public buildings in Paris.[7]
Portraits from this period include thePortrait of the Reverend Father Dominique Lacordaire, of the Order of the Predicant Friars (1840), andThe Two Sisters (1843), which depicts Chassériau's sisters Adèle and Aline.
Throughout his life he was a prolific draftsman; his many portrait drawings executed with a finely pointed graphite pencil are close in style to those of Ingres.[9] He also created a body of 29 prints, including a group of eighteen etchings of subjects fromShakespeare'sOthello in 1844.[10]
He exhibited the colossal portraitAli-Ben-Hamet, Caliph of Constantine and Chief of the Haractas, Followed by his Escort in the Salon of 1845, where it received equivocal reviews. In 1846, Chassériau made his first trip to Algeria. From sketches made on this and subsequent trips he painted such subjects asArab Chiefs Visiting Their Vassals andJewish Women on a Balcony (both 1849, now in theLouvre). A major late work,The Tepidarium (1853, in theMusée d'Orsay), depicts a large group of women drying themselves after bathing, in an architectural setting inspired by the artist's trip in 1840 toPompeii. His most monumental work was his decoration of the grand staircase of theCour des Comptes, commissioned by the state in 1844 and completed in 1848. He followed the example of Delacroix in executing this work in oil on plaster, rather than in fresco.[7] This work was heavily damaged in May 1871 by a fire set during theCommune, and only fragments could be recovered; these are preserved in the Louvre.
After a period of ill health, exacerbated by his exhausting work on commissions for murals to decorate the Churches of Saint-Roch and Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, Chassériau died at the age of 37 in Paris, on October 8, 1856. He is buried in theMontmartre Cemetery.
Chassériau's art has often been characterized as an attempt to reconcile the classicism of Ingres with the romanticism of Delacroix.[11] In composing his narrative paintings, his concern for the decorative arrangement of figures and the creation of a mood took precedence over narrative coherence. His preferred method of working was to study his model carefully and then draw from memory.[12] He favored the serpentine pose, especially for his female figures. Art historian Jonathan P. Ribner calls "the inclined neck and bent knee" Chassériau's "signature motif" and says that "his command of foreshortening and three-dimensional composition remained uneven to the end, and this limitation is reflected in the tenacity of his ... inclination toward flattened, stylized poses."[12] According toLéon Rosenthal, Chassériau was "much less concerned with bringing heroes to life or developing characters than desirous of producing subtle and infinitely rich impressions suggested to him by the themes he chooses".[12]
His work had a significant impact on the style ofPuvis de Chavannes andGustave Moreau, and—through those artists' influence—reverberations in the work ofPaul Gauguin andHenri Matisse.[13] There is in Paris a Society for the painter:Association des Amis de Théodore Chassériau.
Works of Chassériau are in theMusée du Louvre where a room is dedicated to him, in theMusée d'Orsay, and in the Musée deVersailles. Collections in the United States holding works by Théodore Chassériau include theMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York, theFogg Art Museum ofHarvard University, theNational Gallery of Art ofWashington, D.C., theDetroit Institute of Arts, theMuseum of the Art Rhode Island School of Design,The J. Paul Getty Museum and theArt Institute of Chicago.
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Media related toThéodore Chassériau at Wikimedia Commons Media related toPaintings by Théodore Chassériau at Wikimedia Commons
