Day 304 - Ingres portrait


 July 1, 2022

Gallery 801 is devoted primarily to paintings by Ingres,  Gericault, and Delacroix. Many of the works are small, dark, and stacked on top of one another - not easy to see. The introductory placard comments on Delacroix's use of color and his influence on later painters in this regard, but only one canvas, a large panel whose subject is a basket of flowers, gives evidence of his lively palette.

I chose today's work, an 1844 portrait by Ingres of Edmond Cave' , measuring approximately 16" X 13", for two reasons. First, Cave' was so incredibly handsome!  (He bears a striking resemblance, I think, to the director of my former tutoring program,  Peter Ginna, below)  Fifty years old when the portrait was painted, Cave' looks much younger:  although his hair is a distinguished gray around the temples, his face, shown in three-fourths view, has few lines.  A slight smile plays on his lips, and he seems to exude masculinity and confidence. In fact, Cave' did hold an important post, serving as inspector and director of fine arts administration under King Louis Philippe; according to Wikipedia, he was also an attorney and journalist and a sometime librettist and playwright. It's a little shocking to read that he died only eight years after this picture was made.  Again according to Wikipedia, he is best known not for his other accomplishments but for Ingres' portrait of him. So we pass little noticed through the world.  


The second reason for selecting this work  is that it amplifies and corrects my ideas about Ingres as a painter. I'd always thought of Ingres'  brushwork as very controlled, with an emphasis on precision of line, and certainly the artist depicts Cave's facial features - his fine straight nose, his lips, eyes and ears - with much care. But the brushwork depicting Cave''s  white shirt (and cravat?) looks very free; a few dabs of white and gray suffice to give a sense of the shirt's soft fabric. 




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