Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, born in Paris on March 3, 1803 and died in Fontainebleau on August 22, 1860, is a French painter, one of the great figures of romanticism. An important part of his work is preserved in the Louvre museum in Paris, the Condé de Chantilly museum and the Wallace Collection in London.
Born in Paris from a family of Picardy origin, Decamps went with his brothers three years of his youth to Arsy (Picardy), where his father sent him to "learn the rustic life" According to the autobiographical letter which the artist addressed in 1854 to Dr. Louis Véron. Besides the taste for nature, he retains an interest in drawing drawn from contact with small peasants who carved out "chunks of chalk", but "genius did not reveal itself".
At the death of his father, in 1816, he returned to Paris and entered the studio of Étienne Bouhot, an architectural painter with whom he tries to form. He left it in 1818 to study under the leadership of the painter Abel de Pujol, a scholar of academic doctrine. Left to himself, "without direction" or "theory," he leaves disappointed the master's studio and engages in a career as an independent artist. Far from academicism, he found his inspiration in the suburbs of Paris and the villages of the suburbs, in contact with the popular circles and the picturesque life of Paris. At the same time, he practiced at the Louvre at the school of the great Flemish and Dutch masters, devoting particular admiration to Rembrandt, "the most extraordinary of painters" (Letter to Doctor Véron).
Decamps made his debut as a genre painter: Chasseur au marais (1827), Les Janissaires (1827), marking an attraction for nature and oriental subjects. Anxious to improve his art, he traveled to Switzerland and the south of France (1824). He exhibited for the first time at the Salon in 1827 with "La Chasse aux vanneaux" and "Soldier de la garde du Vizir". In 1828 he was sent on a mission to Greece in the company of the painter Louis Garneray, in charge of commemorating Navarin's victory with a painting. He then traveled to Constantinople, Asia Minor (Smyrna) and the Middle East. This experience will be decisive. During his stay, he took notes, made sketches and stored the images with which he would shape his vision of the Orient, which had become a source of inspiration.
At the Salon of 1831, he successfully exhibited seven canvases, including Cadji Bey or the Turkish Patrol, in which he painted vividly the chief of the police of Smyrna and his guards carrying the streets of the city at a striding pace. We observe the extreme stylization of the figures, the vigor of the color as well as the accentuated contrast between the light and dark areas. This very noticed picture earned the author a second-class medal, his first distinction. With Turkish horsemen at the watering place and Les Mendiants (Salon of 1833), then Corps de garde on the road to Smyrna (Salon of 1834), he definitely sits his reputation as "inventor of the Orient".
In his first essays, one could notice his predilection for the painting of animals, especially dogs, which one finds with the Donkey and the dogs scholars and The Hospital of the mangoes (Salon of 1831). He cultivated a no less passion for monkeys, assimilated to human characters, following a tradition inherited from Teniers and continued by Chardin. The Monkey Painter or Workshop Inside (1833) wga.hu [archive] shows a learned monkey in a circus costume painting a painting placed in front of him; He looks absorbed, almost meditative. In the background, a small monkey, with its back turned, grinds colors. In this very successful staging, Decamps took a distant look at his art. There will also be, in the same vein, musician monkeys, cooks, bakers, pork butchers, and so on. The experts, painting exposed at the Salon of 1839, deserves a special mention. Transvestites into monkeys, they imitate the attitude of judges responsible for estimating the value of works. How could the author dauber the real experts who had refused him certain documents? This "spiritual parody", executed brilliantly, was considered one of the best paintings of the master.
Will Decamps be known as the "painter of the apes," as he refers in his letter to Dr. Véron with a humor tinged with bitter irony? In fact, it was not the first time that he used this form of mind so important in his work: from 1827 to 1831, he had been noticed by his satirical drawings published in Le Figaro, L'Artiste , And especially La Caricature, the journal of Philipon. In his political lithographs, he had shown a biting irony which gained him great popularity.
In 1834, Decamps sent to the Salon his most famous work, La Défite des Cimbres, or Marius defeated the Cimbres in the plain between Belsannettes and the great Fugère. This ample picture, representing the combat between the two armies, produces a lively impression by its dramatic effect. But one is especially struck by the arid grandeur of the surrounding landscape. The inextricable melee appears on a secondary plane in relation to the theater of battle, inspired by the decor of the Massif des Maures, in Provence, to which it gives epic proportions. "The theater of the battle is more astonishing, more superb than the battle itself" (Charles Blanc). With this painting of unusual dimensions, Decamps was able to claim the great story, while the work became a landmark for his contemporaries. Decamps received a first-class medal; The painting was bought by Etienne Arago, then sold to the Duke of Orleans.
After this coup, Decamps did not exhibit at the Salon until 1839. Meanwhile, he made a trip to Italy (1835), the "land of wonders", and studied the works of Raphael and Titian. From 1835, also date the painting Albanian dancers (Brest, museum of fine arts). The following period is particularly creative. Among them were Joseph, who was sold by his brothers (1835), The Execution of Hooks (ca.1835), Children Playing with Tortoises (1836), Moses Saved from the Waters (1837), Landscape with the Good Samaritan Village in Italy (1838), where biblical subjects mingled with oriental themes complete his image of the Orient. Several of these paintings were exhibited at the Salon of 1839. At the height of his art, Decamps was promoted to Knight of the Legion of Honor (June 27, 1839).
In the following years, it continues in the historical vein with the Seat of Clermont in Auvergne, in the time of Gaul, and Episode of the battle of the Cimbres, drawn in pencil (Salon of 1842). Noting that no public commission has been passed to him in spite of the success of his works at the Salon, he decides to strike a blow and to undertake what will be his great work, Josué stopping the sun. A first monumental sketch does not satisfy him fully (Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, now destroyed). A second master sketch proves decisive. He embarks on a draft of the monumental painting (6x8m) but he knows that he will not be ready for the Salon of 1845. He then undertakes a parallel project, a Samson Story in several episodes featuring nine charcoal drawings enhanced with Wash, watercolor and pastel, the whole forming a "homogeneous in its variety", in the opinion of the author (Letter to Dr. Véron). The character of Samson, described under the aspect of a simple young man demarcated from the Hercules of mythology, is welcomed with interest by the public. Exhibited at the Salon of 1845, these superb drawings compared to a "long frieze" (Charles Blanc) are greeted with enthusiasm by Baudelaire. However, he knows a certain incomprehension at the Salon of 1846, where several paintings are refused to him. The success is back at the Salon of 1851 with in particular Souvenirs of Turkey of Asia and Eliezer and Rebecca photo.rmn.fr [archive]; He was promoted to officer (May 2, 1851).
Around 1853, his health deteriorated, he suffered from nervous troubles and his work suffered. A prey to discouragement, he sold his Parisian studio (April 1853), auctioned off his unfinished works and retired in the south to the Veyrier (Lot-et-Garonne). It was there that in 1854 he sent his famous letter to Dr. Véron. It bounces during the Exposition Universelle of 1855 where it presents a large retrospective of his work including fifty pieces; He received the medal of honor at the same time as Delacroix and Ingres, the most beautiful of consecrations.
In the last years of his life, he undertakes large canvases that will remain partly unfinished. In 1857, he settled in Fontainebleau, his "country of affection", where he finds an environment conducive to work. Among the works of this period are Le Laboureur, the morning effect (1857), and The Seeker of Truffles (1858), which show a new interest in light. His death occurred at Fontainebleau on August 22, 1860 following a fall of a horse during a hunting of venery.
The work:
The Salon of 1831 marks a turning point in the history of orientalism. For the first time, the public discovers the Orient of everyday life through sincere and credible works resulting from the journey of a painter. The works of Decamps, in particular its Turkish Patrol, its subjects and its strong contrasts of shadows and light impose it from the start and for a long time as the unavoidable reference in matters of orientalism. "Delicious images of a world which Romanticism had glimpsed through the splendours of the Route, and which the violence of Decamps sank into the heart of French painting. The Orient will henceforth be one of the fine obsessions of our masters, "observes Henri Focillon.
Théophile Gautier brings together the role of Decamps, discoverer of the Orient and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, discoverer of nature: "In the nineteenth century, M. Decamps discovered the Orient. It may be said that before him these splendid regions, beloved by the sun, did not exist for art. "
Maxime Du Camp noted the considerable influence of Decamps on painters, such as "Christopher Columbus of the East." This evident influence on the Convulsionaries of Tangier de Delacroix is also evident on the work of Fromentin, Gerome, and most Orientalists.
"Despite the abundance of exotic production, the work of Decamps remains, until an advanced period, the unavoidable reference. At least it is the easiest and it joins in popularity that of the Thousand and One Nights. This impression is not reserved for painters "analyzes Christine Peltre4. It is still the example of Decamps, which, obviously, comes to the mind of Le Corbusier when he discovers the East at Constantinople.
In the history of religious painting, biblical subjects have always been represented in Western landscapes of proximity, Tuscan landscapes for Florentine painting, landscapes of the north for Flemish and Dutch paintings. With classical painting, the landscape of Italy becomes the supreme reference, even if it is extremely stylized. The Holy Land was paradoxically dissociated from the Orient, then unknown to painters.
Thanks to his recognition of the initiator of Orientalism, Decamps makes the Bible to the East. He thus succeeded in carrying out a double ambition, that of the historical painter whom he wanted to have recognized, and that of the Oriental painter whom everyone enthusiastically welcomed. His religious subjects are painted in severe and grandiose oriental landscapes, often dazzled by light: Joseph sold by his brothers (Salon of 1839), Samson fighting the Philistines (Salon of 1839), Josué stopping the sun, Samson's Suite Salon of 1845), Eliezer and Rebecca (Salon of 1850-51), Saul continuing David.
Decamps does not fall into the Orientalist anecdote, conscious that it is not suitable for religious painting. Landscapes are likely but stylized and powerful, figures are reduced and relegated to the background. What counts above all is evocation. The spectator is transported into a striking biblical East.
Bruno Foucart highlighted the major role played by Decamps in the revival of religious painting. Following the path of Ingres, Raphael's heir, after that of Delacroix, heir to Veronese, decamps, heir to Rembrandt, opened a third way in religious painting, by far the most audacious and innovative of his time. "Decamps is, in these conditions, the founding father of Orientalism; From the outset it shows the relative vanity of an exoticism to the exact description, since the impression is sufficient; From the start, he sets the limits of a new history painting less concerned with describing than evoking. "
Decamps spiritualizes the landscape, which, stripped of the superfluous of a descriptive representation, sometimes tends to abstraction. Only the orientalist emotion and the sensation of the sacred survive.
https://hisour.com/artist/alexandre-gabriel-decamps/
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