GIRODET DE ROUCY-TRIOSON, Anne-Louis

This young boy was the only child of Dr. Trioson, who adopted the painter in 1809. Formerly the painting was titled as Portrait of the Young Romainville-Trioson.

Fran�ois-Ren� de Chateaubriand (1768-3848) was a French author, a representative of the reaction against the ideas of the French Revolution, and the most conspicuous figure in French literature during the First Empire.

There is an air of intense introspection in the portrait that Anne-Louis Girodet painted of him in 1809, meditating on the ruins of Rome. In the still Italian air, Chateaubriand’s hair is windswept (Napoleon mischievously said the portrait looked like that of a conspirator who had come down a chimney), hinting at the storms and passions that had lashed his best-known creation. (Chateaubriand wrote Ren�, a fictional self-portrait in 1802 in London.)

One of a cycle of “ethnic types,” this painting occupies a secondary place in the oeuvre of Girodet de Roucy-Trioson, a pupil of David and one of the foremost decorative artists of the First Empire. However, the persuasiveness of the compositional approach and the power of colour here are striking evidence that it took a considerable time before visual effect became an outmoded dogma for artists.

Girodet first depicted the actress Mademoiselle Lange as Venus, standing on her couch, her face turned from the viewer (Museum der bildenden K�nste, Leipzig). When the actress expressed her annoyance at the painting, Girodet painted her again, this time in mythological form, Mademoiselle Lange as Danaë.

The oval canvas again reveals her lap unclothed, and in light fingers she holds a broken mirror, the symbol of Vanitas. At her feet lies the attribute of Jupiter, a bundle of fire. But Jupiter is not present in the form of the royal eagle, instead we see a turkey-cock. Cupid is looking out of the picture at the viewer and holding up the cloth that covered the actress’ lap with an inviting gesture. The painting caused a scandal in the Salon of 1799 and had to be withdrawn. The actress’ career was over, and Girodet fell into disfavour.

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

Girodet was Jacques-Louis David’s favourite pupil. The sense of the mysterious and poetic that he shows in many of his works is what many call the Romantic spirit, although it was already latent in Neoclassicism. Girodet sensed the coming direction in an early stage, although he had been trained to be a Neoclassicist by David.

Girodet depicted the actress Mademoiselle Lange as Venus, standing on her couch, her face turned from the viewer. In the mirror that Cupid is holding up to her, the painter, who delighted in hidden references, has shown only one ear. When the actress expressed her annoyance at the painting, Girodet painted her again, this time in mythological form, Mademoiselle Lange as Danaë.

The toilet of Venus is a timeless theme of sensuous seduction. You can view other depictions of Venus at Her Toilet in the Web Gallery of Art.

This painting was an early example of the new subjects that would occupy the emergent French Romantic movement. The commission was given to Girodet in 1801 for the decoration of the small palace of Malmaison, which Napoleon was having furnished for his own use. Two paintings on the subject of Ossian were to flank the chimney breast in the reception room. The other was to be painted by Fran�ois G�rard. They were the only two paintings to praised by the owner of the palace, and not without reason. Napoleon was also seized by the current wave of enthusiasm for the prose epics of the legendary Gaelic poet Ossian.

Ossian purports to be a translation of an epic cycle of Scottish poems from the early dark ages. Ossian, a blind bard, sings of the life and battles of Fingal, a Scotch warrior. Ossian caused a sensation when it was published on the cusp of the era of revolutions, and had a massive cultural impact during the 18th and 19th centuries. Napoleon carried a copy into battle; Goethe translated parts of it; the city of Selma, Alabama was named after the home of Fingal, and one of Ingres’ most romantic and moody paintings, the Dream of Ossian was based on it. The originator of the “unearthed, old Irish fragments” Fingal and Temora, published in 1762 and 1763, was a Scot, James Macpherson (1736-1796). Ten years after Macpherson’s death it was discovered that the poems were forgeries, written by Macpherson himself from fragments of sagas.

In Girodet’s painting the heroes surround the blind poet in Valhalla, in fanatical devotion, and ready for battle. In his train we see fallen warrior heroes of history, illuminated as with an inner radiance, and, as if in reward, surrounded by fairy-like floating maidens.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 4 minutes):

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: The Hebrides Overture (‘Fingals Cave’)

In 1816, only a few months after assuming the newly restored French throne, King Louis XVIII commissioned from several artists, including Anne-Louis Girodet, a series of posthumous full-length portraits of generals who had fought for the Royalist cause during the Revolution. The series included the portrait of Jacques Cathelineau (1759-1793) for which Girodet received the commission.

To ensure the accuracy of the posthumous portrait, Girodet painted the present bust-length portrait of Cathelineau’s son, Jacques-Joseph (1785-1832). This sketch is full of vitality and character.

The final full-length portrait of the father was exhibited in the 1824 Salon.

Joachim-Napoleon Murat (born Joachim Murat, 1767-1815), 1st Prince Murat, Grand Duke of Berg and Cleves, Marshal of France, was King of the Two Sicilies from 1808 to 1815. He received his titles in part by being the brother-in-law of Napoleon Bonaparte, through marriage to Napoleon’s youngest sister, Caroline Bonaparte.

This canvas is a sketch for Girodet’s painting Napoleon Receiving the Keys of the City of Vienna, 13 November 1805.

The sitter of this portrait is Hortense de Beauharnais (1793-1837), the daughter of Napoleon’s second wife, Josephine. She unhappily married Louis Bonaparte, the younger brother of Napoleon. In 1806, Louis was made king of the newly formed Kingdom of Holland and Hortense became Holland’s first queen.

Girodet was one of Jacques-Louis David’s most talented and beloved pupils. In 1789 he received the Prix de Rome and set off for Italy, where he was to spend five years. The Italian journey led the artist to break with the classicizing approach he had learned from his teacher and to form his own individual style, a style which allows us to see Girodet as a precursor of Romanticism.

During the Empire, Girodet painted disaster scenes such as the Flood (D�luge). This painting was presented at the Salon of 1806.

This unconventional self-portrait depicts the artist without brushes, palette and easel, the traditional attributes of the artist’s profession.

Mourning and sacrifice are the themes of The Entombment of Atala, the moving picture that David’s pupil Girodet showed at the Paris Salon in 1808. The scene is set in America, the Native American brave Chactas mourns, clasping the legs of his lover, the half-Spanish converted Christian Atala, who expires before him, comforted by a friar. He is not virtuous: he has violated her vow to remain a virgin or die, and as she meets her punishment his lithe sexuality and dangerous power can still be felt. With its wild New World setting, intensely realized emotions and almost supernatural lighting, the picture moves outside classical rules to contrast ‘civilization’ and ‘barbarism’ in highly ambivalent terms.

Girodet took his richly suggestive narrative from a popular story published seven years earlier by Chateaubriand, who had gone to America in 1791 to escape the Revolution.

This painting, painted while the artist was still in Rome, shows strong mystical and erotic tendencies in the way it treats the classical legend of the shepherd boy beloved by the moon goddess.