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Alexander CabanelPortrait painter, favorite painter of Napoleon III
Country:
 France |
Content:
Alexandre Cabanel: Biography of a Renowned Artist of the Second Empire
Alexandre Cabanel (1823-1889) was perhaps the most popular and distinguished artist of the Second Empire (1852-1870). He was a fashionable portraitist and a beloved painter of Napoleon III and other European rulers. Cabanel entered the history of art as a symbol of the outdated academic tradition that cleverly adapted to the demands of the time. He was the recipient of many awards and a member of the French Academy. Nothing reflects the "psychology of the era" as accurately as mass culture. After half a century, its idols are forgotten, but after a hundred years, historians find precious material in their works to reconstruct the mentality and tastes of the time. In the 19th century, salon painting embodied the prevailing ideas of "high art," and one of its brightest manifestations in France was the work of Alexandre Cabanel.
Early Life and Education
Cabanel was born in 1823 in the university town of Montpellier in the south of France. He was raised in a tradition-oriented academic environment. Transferred to Paris in his childhood, he enrolled in the School of Fine Arts in 1840, studying under François Picot. In 1845, he successfully completed his studies and was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome for his painting "Christ before the Judges." Alongside his friend, collector, and connoisseur of antiquities A. Broa, Cabanel settled in Rome, where his style finally took shape.
Achievements and Success
Cabanel's painting "The Death of Moses," brought from Rome, was exhibited at the Salon in 1852 and earned him his first exhibition award in an endless chain of medals and accolades. His presence at the Paris Salon served as a prologue, a calling card of the artistic life of the Second Empire. Later, the artist catered to the lavish and luxurious lifestyle of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, pursuing pleasures with indifference to the means of their achievement. He added a pictorial "spice" in the form of illustrations depicting provocative or dramatic episodes from history and literature. The numerous more or less nude women in Cabanel's works, portraying Sulamith, Ruth, Cleopatra, Francesca da Rimini, or Desdemona, were monotonous in their "burning gaze," shadowed eyes, affected gestures, and unnaturally rosy tones of seductively curved bodies. Cabanel's artistry appealed to the taste of high-profile clients. In 1855, in addition to receiving the First Medal at the 1855 World Exposition for his painting "The Triumph of St. Louis," Cabanel was awarded the Legion of Honor. In 1864, he was promoted to officer, and in 1878, he became a commander of the Order. In 1863, he was elected a member of the Academy, succeeding J.-L. David, J.-J. Le Barbier, and Horace Vernet. In the same year, which entered the history of French art due to the famous "Salon des Refusés," where Édouard Manet's "Luncheon on the Grass" was exhibited, Cabanel's official position as the "first painter of the Empire" became even more solidified. Napoleon III acquired two Cabanel paintings for himself - "The Abduction of a Nymph" (1860, Lille, Museum of Fine Arts) and the centerpiece of the official Salon, "The Birth of Venus" (1863, Paris, Louvre). Thus, to Cabanel's weak drawing skills and banal color scheme, which, according to critics, "melted in the fragrance of violets and roses," was attached the status of a benchmark, an example of dominant taste and the highest achievement of contemporary painting.
Influence and Legacy
Cabanel's mythological scenes, full of affected sensuality, deliberate elegance, and erotic ambiguity, recreated the aesthetic ideal of the era, its attraction to the "beautiful life." Cabanel's characters from classical stories most resemble the wanton and sensual nymphs of Clodion. The works of this late 18th-century French sculptor were well-known in the second half of the 19th century thanks to the widespread dissemination of numerous copies and free interpretations by contemporary sculptors on Clodion's themes, such as A.E. Carrier-Belleuse and J.B. Clésinger. Cabanel's artistry belonged not only to the individual and local artistic phenomenon but also to a type of art that was prevalent in the 19th century, targeting average, mass taste and using proven techniques to gain popularity. The numerous icons of the century, the apostles of salon classicism - A. Cabanel, V. Bouguereau, J. Ingres, P. Baudry - mastered all historical styles and did not develop their own. It is no wonder that a contemporary wrote of one of these legislator's of art fashion: "Usually, everyone takes his paintings for copies of the works of various artists... Nevertheless, the artist flourishes, and his imitative ability, the absence of anything original, as it were, contributes to his success." The quality guaranteeing success, pleasant mediocrity, fully characterized the works of Alexandre Cabanel.
With the establishment of the republic, Cabanel did not lose his fame. He was literally inundated with commissions, producing stereotypically elegant female portraits ("Portrait of Catherine Wolff," 1876, New York, Metropolitan Museum) and depictions of "fatal beauties" from the past ("Phaedra," Museum of Montpellier). He was equally successful as an educator, displaying a certain open-mindedness towards his students, including J. Bastien-Lepage, B. Constantin, E. Moreau, F. Cormon, and A. Jervex. Throughout his life, Cabanel, the privileged and celebrated artist, remained faithful to his adopted methods, which were incapable of embodying even the banality of his intentions, according to F. Basile. However, despite the conservatism of his artistic approach, Cabanel occasionally showed a certain breadth of judgment. In 1881, after many years of strongly disapproving of Édouard Manet and the Impressionists, he came to the defense of Manet's work "Portrait of Pertruisat" exhibited at the Salon. "Gentlemen, among us, there may not be even four who could paint a head like this," these words from a respected and recognized master serve as an involuntary recognition of the decisive victory of the new direction in French art.
