BLANCHARD, Jacques

This painting depicts a common subject in seventeenth-century painting throughout Europe. Its meaning would have been interpreted in both a religious and secular way. Blanchard specialized in painting such subjects as Charity, of which many different versions exist, all showing the particular type of rather delicate sentiment which appears in almost all his works. In this painting the influence of Veronese is visible not only in the light and colour, but also in the architectural background and in the clear building-up of the group.

The canvas illustrates a passage from Ludovico Ariosto’s (1474–1533) epic poem Orlando Furioso (XIX:36), in which the two lovers engrave their names in the bark of a tree. Because the surface is worn, the letters are no longer visible. In the early 1630s Blanchard was decorating the galleries of various private houses in Paris with such narrative pictures in series. The soft lighting and languid nudity suggest the influence of sixteenth-century Venetian painting.

There is a much more sensual approach to the subject than in that of Poussin, but still the same longing after the Elysian world of classical antiquity.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 7 minutes):

Camille Saint-Saëns: Samson et Delila, Act III, Scene 2, Bacchanal

The theme of the princess confined in a tower and visited by Jupiter in the form of a shower of gold was extremely popular in arts from the 16th century, Danaë is frequently represented in Renaissance and Baroque painting. You can view other depictions of Danaë in the Web Gallery of Art.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 5 minutes):

Richard Strauss: Danaë’s Love, Danaë’s monologue

One of the best work of the painter who was called “the French Titian”. The composition and the colours manifest the influence of contemporary (and not Renaissance!) Venetian painting. The detailed execution of the head (especially the beard) is remarkable.

The story is recounted in the Book of Tobit. Tobias was sent by his father Tobit to Media to recover a sum of money he had hidden there earlier. Archangel Raphael, sent by God to help Tobit and his family, asked Tobit (who did not recognize the angel) whether he may escort his son on his journey and, in company with Tobias’ faithful hound, they departed together. They reached the Tigris, where Tobias was attacked by a gigantic fish. The archangel ordered him to capture it and had him remove and conserve its gall, heart and liver. The innards proved to be a medicine which he can use to restore his father’s sight.

The subject of the painting is taken from Ovid and illustrates the moment that the goddess, begging Adonis not to leave her for the hunt, knowing that he will never return, entreats a kiss from her reluctant and very mortal lover.

The picture illustrates Blanchard’s mastery of texture, both in drapery, and flesh tones. Here we see the painter’s great admiration of and debt to his Venetian experience: the strongly baroque rhythm of interlocking limbs is characteristic of the Venetian school, but was achieved by only a few northern artists, Rubens being the most successful in this regard. It is interesting to note how similar Blanchard’s Venus and Adonis is to Rubens’s painting of the same subject, which he, in turn had based on Titian’s picture in the Prado.

Jacques Blanchard, who unfortunately died young, developed the sensuous richness of the Venetian masters with a great deal of seductive talent. His qualities made him a remarkable and highly appreciated painter of female nudes.

In the present painting the artist’s model is evidently Rubens, whose late nudes he must have known. Blanchard was not a mere eclectic, for out of his borrowings he composed a style of his own which makes him one of the most attractive painters of his generation.