Jean baptiste marie pierre biography
Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre
Closely related in style to his teacher, Charles-Joseph Natoire, Pierre remained committed to a formal canon of academic decorative painting that gradually began to grow stale. Neither an extended stay on scholarship in Rome from 1734 to 1740 nor recognition by the Academy in Paris, where he was named a professor in 1748, stimulated his artistic independence.
The personal favour of Madame de Pompadour and her brother, the Marquis de Marigny, helped Pierre to have a part in important decorative assignments in the Palais Royal and at Fontainebleau. There were also commissions for the cupola fresco in the Mary Chapel at the church of Saint Roch and in 1768 for a ceiling painting in the palace at St Cloud. His career peaked in 1770, after the death of Boucher, when he was named 'Premier Peintre du Roi', and in that same year director of the Academy. Thus Pierre had attained all the honours and offices available to a painter all at once, at a point where his art, owing to the new demands and expectations imposed on painting, had already to a certain extent become outdated. This helps to explain why he devoted the last twenty years of his life exclusively to administrative tasks.
Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre Use your arrow keys to navigate the tabs below, and your tab key to choose an item Title:The Death of Harmonia Artist:Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre (French, Paris 1714–1789 Paris) Date:ca. 1740–41 Medium:Oil on canvas Dimensions:77 1/2 x 58 1/4 in. (196.9 x 148 cm) Classification:Paintings Credit Line:Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Harry N. Abrams, by exchange, 1969 Object Number:69.129 Pierre, born in 1714, placed first in the Prix de Rome competition of 1734 and spent five years in Italy. When he returned to Paris he rose speedily through the ranks of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture: admitted to consideration for membership in 1741, he was received in 1742, and appointed assistant professor in 1744 and professor in 1748. Pierre was able and socially and politically adept. Previously, his work had been described as uneven and even lacking in originality, but much of it is lost, and recent scholarship (Lesur and Aaron 2009) has demonstrated that he was not simply a facile late rococo painter, but able in various genres, and an occasional innovator and precursor of neoclassicism. For this agenda, the present picture is symptomatic. French painter Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre by Guillaume Voiriot Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre (6 March 1714 – 15 May 1789) was a French painter, draughtsman and administrator. He was a student of Charles-Joseph Natoire at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture and painted a self-portrait in 1732. From 1770 to 1789 he was Premier peintre du Roi. Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre's students included Étienne-Louis Boullée, Louis-Jacques Durameau, Nicolas-René Jollain, Friedrich Reclam, Étienne de La Vallée Poussin, Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier, Antoine Vestier, Jean-Baptiste Tierce, and Hughes Taraval. Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun wrote in her memoirs:
(French, Paris 1714–1789 Paris)
Le Misanthrope
Pen and black ink, brush and gray wash, over black chalk, heightened with white gouache, on blue paper
8 3/4 x 11 inches (220 x 280 mm)
Purchased as the gift of Joan Taub Ades and on the Lois and Walter C. Baker Fund; 2006.5
A prolific painter of history, religious, and genre scenes, Pierre assumed the mantle of premier peintre du roi in 1770, following Boucher's death. He was named director of the Académie Royale the same year. Throughout his career Pierre enjoyed the support of royal and noble patrons and continued the elegant tradition fostered by his mentor, Charles-Joseph Natoire.
This highly finished drawing illustrates a scene from one of Molière's most famous comedies, Le Misanthrope, which was first performed in the theater of the Palais Royal on 4 June 1666. The play is set in fashionable seventeenth-century Paris. Alceste, the title character, is disgusted by humanity's hypocrisy, injustice, and corruption. Nonetheless, he is in love with Célimène, a flirtatious young widow, who surrounds herself with suitors and exemplifies the insincerity that Alceste despises in others. The drawing depicts Alceste with Célimène; her two suitors, Clitandre and Acaste; Alceste's friend Philinte; and Célimène's cousin Éliante. The inscription Non morbleu!, c'est a vous; et vos ris complaisans tirent de son esprit tous ces trais medisants [sic], which may be translated "No, gadzooks! It concerns you; for your assenting laughs draw from her wit all these slanderous remarks," is a line from act 2, scene 4, directed by Alceste to the suitors in response to Clitandre's comment. Clitandre had remarked that if Alceste was offended by what had been said, he should address his reproaches to Célimène and not to them.
This sheet, which has been dated to about 1750–55, is one of three known drawings by Pierre illustrating Molière's The Death of Harmonia
The subject is an unusual one. Harmonia, the daughter of King Gelon II of Syracuse, risked death at the hands of conspirators who had already killed other members of her family. Her governess tried to save her by exchanging her clothes with those of an enslaved girl of the same age, who, dressed as a princess, was murdered in her stead. Inspired by the girl’s courage, Harmonia revealed her identity and was also assassinated. Her death, which must have been understood as emblematic of heroism in antiquity, seems to have occurred in 214 B.C. Here Harmonia, seated in an eighteenth-century armchair, wears the white draperies that were thought appropriate for a young Greek or Roman woman. The body of the enslaved girl, eyes closed, face discolored in death, lies at her feet. The figure of the p Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre
Born (1714-03-06)6 March 1714 Died 15 May 1789(1789-05-15) (aged 75) Known for Painting, Drawing, Administrator Life
Misogyny
Gallery
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