BORN 1780: DIED 1867
FRENCH SCHOOL

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (pronounced Ang´gr) was born at Montauban in the south of France, on August 29, 1780. His father, Jean-Marie-Joseph Ingres, was by profession a house-decorator, with talents so versatile that he was also to some extent painter, sculptor, architect, and musician as well. It was he who gave the first instruction in drawing and in music to his son, who, from the outset, showed so much ability in both that it was a question which should be adopted as his life-work.

Apparently the boy received but little schooling, but before he was twelve years old had acquired such proficiency as a violinist that he was accepted as a member of the orchestra of the theater of Toulouse, where on one memorable occasion he played a concerto by Viotti so skilfully that it called forth hearty applause. Deeming music to be more remunerative than painting, his parents wished him to devote himself to it professionally. This did not, however, prevent their sending him to the painter Vigan, in Toulouse, for instruction in drawing, and under his guidance Ingres followed the course prescribed by the Academy of that city, in which Vigan was a professor. Later he entered the studio of Roques, a painter who had been associated in Rome with Vien and David, but who, while adhering to their doctrines, had devoted much time to copying the works of the great Italians of the Renaissance. The sight of these copies—above all, of one of Raphael's 'Madonna of the Chair'—revealed to Ingres his true vocation, and thenceforth no doubt existed in his mind that he would devote his life to art.

Whatever disappointment his parents may have felt to have the matter so decided, no opposition was made to his determination, and after a brief period of study under a landscape-painter—Briant, or, as M. MommÉja says, Bertrand, by name—he started for Paris. There he soon obtained admission to the studio of Jacques-Louis David, then the acknowledged leader of the school of painting in France.

This was in 1796, and for the next four years Ingres worked diligently and with such effect that before long he was recognized as one of David's most promising pupils. A proof of his master's appreciation of his ability is the fact that when called upon to paint a portrait of Madame RÉcamier (see Masters in Art, Part 74, Vol. 7) David selected his young pupil Ingres to assist him in the work. But harmony between master and pupil was of short duration, and although to the end of his life Ingres spoke with admiration of "the great David and his great school," asserting that his teaching was established "on the severest and the truest principles," friction arose between them, so that in the competition for the grand prize of Rome in 1800, Ingres, unjustly it was said, was awarded but the second prize. In the following year David's jealousy was aroused by the praise bestowed by the English sculptor Flaxman upon the composition by Ingres of 'Achilles and the Ambassadors of Agamemnon,' which won for its author the grand prize of Rome.

Although the young painter was now entitled to a sojourn of five years in Italy, such was the reduced state of the French national finances that his departure for Rome was indefinitely postponed. In the meantime he was accorded a studio in the deserted convent of the Capuchins in Paris, where with several other artists he pursued his studies. Poor and without commissions, save a few chance orders, or a stray job for some bookseller, Ingres worked assiduously at drawings and studies in color, producing also a number of works which have since become famous—a portrait of his father, one of himself at twenty-four (now at Chantilly), portraits of Monsieur and Madame RiviÈre (in the Louvre), 'La belle ZÉlie' (Rouen Museum), two portraits of Napoleon Bonaparte, and others, in which, as Delaborde has said, "he showed, as boldly and forcibly as at the end of his career, all the strong, realistic qualities which form the basis of his art."

At length, in 1806, he was enabled to go to Italy, where he remained for eighteen years, during the first five of which he was a pensioner of the French Academy in Rome, then established in the Villa Medici. He now found himself able to study at the fountainhead both ancient and Renaissance art, and was transported by the beauty of the works of the sixteenth-century Italian painters—especially by those of Raphael, whom he always regarded as the greatest of all masters.

Ingres' work gained steadily in strength and vigor, and his individuality developed rapidly. Departing from the cold formalism of David, he turned to nature for his inspiration and gave a greater semblance of life to his figures than was in strict accordance with the code of the classicists. 'Œdipus and the Sphinx,' the first work sent by him from Rome to Paris, gave evidence that the young pensioner of the French Academy was already in possession of his powers, and that however severely he might be criticized for the singularity of his works, he was undoubtedly some one to be counted with.

Soon after painting his 'Œdipus' he began the 'Venus Anadyomene' which was finished many years later. These works were followed by some of his finest portraits, and, in 1811, he completed 'Jupiter and Thetis,' a large canvas now in the Museum of Aix. 'Romulus and Acron' and 'Virgil reading the Æneid' followed; then came 'The Betrothal of Raphael,' 'Don Pedro kissing the Sword of Henry iv.', 'The Sistine Chapel,' and 'The Large Odalisque.' 'The Death of Leonardo da Vinci' and 'Henry iv. and the Spanish Ambassador' were painted in 1817; 'Roger liberating Angelica' and 'Francesca da Rimini' were finished two years later. But whatever the subject or the treatment, none of his works found favor in France. The classicists looked upon him as a renegade from their ranks, and, strangely enough, it was only by Delacroix and a few others of the so-called romanticists (regarded by Ingres with openly expressed abhorrence) that the merit of his works seems at that time to have been recognized.

As year after year passed by, and neither reputation nor money rewarded his efforts, the cold indifference and neglect of his country were keenly felt by him. He was, however, so firmly convinced that his methods were the true ones—that for an attainment of the highest style an artist must turn to nature, and that color and effect should be wholly subordinate to beauty of line—that, even when sore pressed and in the utmost need, he never deviated from his path in order to cater to popular prejudice and prevailing taste. "I count on my old age to avenge me," he used to say.

In 1813, when he was thirty-three, Ingres married a young French woman, Madeleine Chapelle by name, who, in a rather business-like way, had gone to Rome from her home in Montauban at the invitation of some relatives living in Italy with whom Ingres had become well acquainted, for the express purpose of becoming the artist's wife. The marriage was a congenial and perfectly happy one. Madame Ingres seems from the first to have felt firm faith in her husband's genius, and he owed much to her unfailing courage and devotion. The burden of his poverty was cheerfully assumed by her; all petty annoyances, as well as serious anxieties, were kept from his knowledge so far as was possible, and with no thought but of his well-being and his peace of mind, his wife shared his trials and lightened his cares.

It was at this period that Ingres, in order to earn money enough for their daily bread, executed for slight remuneration many of those marvelous little portraits in lead-pencil (see plates iii, iv, and v) which are so exquisite in touch, so perfect in their purity of line, that they place him on a level with the most consummate draftsmen of all times. He himself seems to have regarded these little masterpieces, for they are nothing less, merely as "pot-boilers," and to have even experienced a certain sense of humiliation that his art should perforce be turned into a channel so trivial in his eyes compared with the great works his brush longed to paint. The story is told of a gentleman who one day knocked at the door of his modest studio in Rome, and when Ingres himself appeared, asked timidly, "Does the artist live here who draws portraits in lead-pencil?" "No, sir," was the angry reply; "he who lives here is a painter," and the door was slammed in the face of the astonished visitor. Yet that he did appreciate their artistic excellence is clear from the fact that when in 1855 it was proposed to hang a row of these drawings below the paintings in his exhibition of that year, he objected. "No," he said, "people would look only at them."

In 1820, after painting for one of the churches in Rome a large picture representing 'Christ giving the Keys to St. Peter' (now in the Louvre), Ingres left Rome, and, in the hope of better fortune than had so far attended him in Italy, settled in Florence. His friend and former fellow-pupil in David's studio, the sculptor Bartolini, was then living there, and did all in his power to assist him; but Bartolini's kindness served to only alleviate, not to overcome, the hardships of this residence in a city where Ingres was all but unknown, and where he was without even the scanty means of support afforded by the sale of his pencil portraits, which in Rome had been in demand by the strangers constantly passing through that city. He and his wife were indeed so poor that often they had not money enough to buy the necessary food. And yet at the time of their greatest distress he bravely rejected the proposition of a wealthy Englishman to go to England, where a fortune would be assured him by the execution of portraits in lead-pencil.

The work that chiefly occupied the artist in Florence was completing a picture entitled 'The Entry of Charles v. into Paris,' and in filling an order received from the French Administration of the Fine Arts for a large picture for the Cathedral of Montauban, representing 'The Vow of Louis xiii.' When at work upon this painting he received a visit one day from DelÉcluze, another fellow-pupil in the David studio, who, passing through Florence, had hunted up his old friend. DelÉcluze was struck by the imposing character of the picture, and urged the artist, who was discouraged and disheartened and talked of abandoning the work altogether, to complete it and send it to Paris. This was done, and when, a year later, 'The Vow of Louis xiii.' was exhibited at the famous Salon of 1824 Ingres had the gratification of knowing that at last recognition had come to him. The picture met with universal approbation, and Ingres, who now returned to France after a self-imposed exile of eighteen years, became suddenly famous. At Montauban he was received with enthusiasm; in Paris he was decorated with the badge of the Legion of Honor, and in the following year, 1825, was elected to the Institute of France.

The French government now commissioned him to execute a ceiling decoration for one of the galleries of the Louvre. The result was 'The Apotheosis of Homer,' the greatest of all his subject-pictures. This was in 1827, and from then on Ingres was looked upon as a leader of the French school—a chef d'École. His studio was thronged with pupils as David's once had been—the two Flandrins, Amaury-Duval, ChassÉriau, Lehmann, Pichon, and the brothers Balze were among the number—and with authority only less despotic than that of his former master, he ruled the band of young artists who regarded him with such admiration and reverence that they brooked no adverse criticism of him whom they felt to be the deliverer from the bondage of the severe classicism of David, and, at the same time, the opponent of that romantic reaction which was daily growing in power under the leadership of EugÈne Delacroix.

Ingres himself was vehement in his denunciation of this new movement, which, diametrically opposed to the academic and the classic, rated freedom of expression and the representation of dramatic and emotional themes as superior to formal composition and impersonal, statuesque art, and held that beauty of color was of greater pictorial importance than purity of line. His animosity to Delacroix, then the leader of the romanticists, knew no bounds. He regarded him as a follower of the evil one, and could not hear his name mentioned with equanimity. Ingres was violent and prejudiced by nature, and holding as he did that "drawing was the probity of art," and that painting was but a development of sculpture, he felt that the kind of art practised by Delacroix and his school was nothing short of blasphemous. This feeling of hostility was fully reciprocated by the romanticists. Party feeling ran high and was increased by the intense partisanship shown to their leaders by the students and younger painters belonging to the opposing factions.

In 1834 Ingres' great canvas 'The Martyrdom of St. Symphorien' was exhibited at the Salon. The reception accorded it was far from what its author, who regarded it as one of his finest achievements, had counted on. Filled with anger and resentment that the same cold indifference that had greeted his early efforts was shown this picture, Ingres, in disgust, resolved to work no more for the unappreciative public, and gladly accepted the offer of the directorship of the French Academy in Rome.

During his second sojourn in Italy he produced but few works. 'The Virgin of the Host,' a portrait of Cherubini, a small version of the 'Odalisque,' and a picture of 'Stratonice' are the principal pictures of this period. His duties as Director of the Academy were conscientiously fulfilled, and in the congenial atmosphere of Rome, surrounded by his pupils, seven years passed.

In 1841, his picture of 'Stratonice,' painted for the Duke of Orleans, and now at Chantilly, was sent from Rome to Paris and exhibited at the Palais Royal. The reception it met with was highly favorable, and decided its author to return once more to his own country. Arrived in Paris, Ingres was received with all due deference; a banquet was given in his honor, at which painters, sculptors, and musicians united in showing him their admiration and respect. Delacroix alone was conspicuous by his absence.

A portrait of the Duke of Orleans was one of the first works executed by Ingres after his return, and before long he received the flattering commission from the Duke of Luynes to decorate with two great mural paintings the large hall of that nobleman's chÂteau at Dampierre. For many years this work continued, Ingres and his wife spending several weeks each spring as guests of the Duke of Luynes in order that the painter might pursue his labors under the most favorable conditions. The subjects to be portrayed were 'The Iron Age' and 'The Golden Age,' but an unfortunate combination of circumstances prevented the completion of either one. At first Ingres worked with enthusiasm, but as time went on his ardor cooled. Misunderstandings arose between the duke and the painter, and when, in 1849, the wife, who for nearly forty years had been his faithful and devoted companion, died, Ingres lost all heart to go on with the task, and the contract with the Duke of Luynes was canceled.

His wife's death left him desolate. He worked as diligently as ever, but his loneliness preyed upon him, and, embittered as he was by the struggles and privations of his early life, he could ill bear the loss of one on whom he had learned to depend for comfort and counsel. His friends all urged him to marry again, and accordingly, in 1852, he married Mademoiselle Delphine Ramel, some thirty years younger than he and the niece of one of his closest friends, and found in her a devoted companion who cheered his closing years.

In 1853 his most important work was 'The Apotheosis of Napoleon i.,' painted for the ceiling of a hall in the HÔtel de Ville, Paris, a work that was destroyed by the communards in 1871.

At the Universal Exposition held in Paris in 1855, the master, then seventy-five years of age, consented to exhibit a collection of his works. A room was reserved for them exclusively, and the impression they produced was such that Prince Napoleon, president of the jury, proposed an exceptional reward for the painter, who was named by the emperor Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor.

In the following year Ingres completed one of his most beautiful and most famous works, known as 'La Source.' Begun many years before, this picture is the culmination, so to speak, of his genius, the crowning-point of his task, his final word. After years of disappointed hopes, of struggle and of neglect, the artist now in his old age rested secure in the glory which was his at last.

After the completion of 'La Source' Ingres occupied himself chiefly in finishing many of the studies made in his younger days, and in painting replicas of several of his pictures. In 1862, when over eighty, he completed a large canvas, commissioned many years before by Queen Marie AmÉlie, wife of Louis Philippe. This work, representing 'Christ among the Doctors,' is now in the Museum of Montauban, to which the artist bequeathed it at his death, together with his painting of 'Ossian's Dream,' a collection of his drawings and studies, as well as marbles, bronzes, medals, vases, pictures, books and engravings, his favorite pieces of furniture, his easel, palette, brushes, and his famous violin on which almost to the last he played with unusual skill.

In the same year that saw the completion of his 'Jesus among the Doctors' an exposition was held in his honor at Montauban, when Ingres, who was present on the occasion, was greeted with an ovation by his fellow-townsmen, who presented him with a crown of gold. Not long afterwards he received news of his appointment as a senator of France—a flattering testimony to his genius and the highest dignity which had ever been accorded an artist in that country.

Ingres' last years passed peacefully. His great delight was in his work and in music. Early in January, 1867, he became absorbed in a plan of hearing in his own home before he died some of the music of the composers he most deeply cared for—Gluck, Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart. A chamber concert was accordingly arranged, and a number of his special friends were invited to the festival, which opened with a grand dinner. Ingres—"Father Ingres," as he was called—was in the best of spirits, and, notwithstanding his advanced age, seemingly in the best of health. Although too old to himself play on his violin, he had lost none of his keen enjoyment of music, and on this occasion his enthusiasm was that of youth. He listened enraptured to the works of his favorite composers played by some of the most skilled musicians of Paris, and finally begged that before the evening was over he might hear the concerto by Viotti which, as a boy of twelve, he had played in the theater at Toulouse.

During the night following this memorable little concert Ingres was awakened by the fall of a burning log from the fireplace to the floor of his chamber. Instead of ringing for a servant, he himself restored the log to its place and opened the window to free the room from smoke. In the few moments this occupied he took a severe cold. A cough developed, and one week later, on January 14, 1867, he died, in the eighty-seventh year of his age.

His funeral was held three days afterwards. An immense crowd followed the hearse which conveyed his remains from his home on the Quai Voltaire, Paris, to the Church of St. Thomas Aquinas, where the services were held, and thence to the cemetery of PÈre-Lachaise, where he was laid to rest.

In addition to the honors which had been conferred upon Ingres by his own country, he had been elected a member of the Academies of Florence, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Berlin, and Vienna; had been made a Chevalier of the Order of Civil Merit of Prussia; a Commander of the Order of Leopold of Belgium; a Chevalier of the Order of St. Joseph of Tuscany; and had received the grand cross of the Order of Guadaloupe.