Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (1758-1823)
Past exhibition
Admire the different faces of one of the most emblematic 19th century painters of the city of Cluny.
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Rate
Adults: €9.50
Children: free
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Public
From 10 years old
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To note
The exhibition is presented at the Museum of Art and Archaeology of Cluny with the following extras: portraits made by students of the College Prud'hon of Cluny; wooden puzzle and exhibition booklet!
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Presentation
On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Pierre-Paul Prud'hon's death, his native town will celebrate the artist with a dive into the heart of about thirty portraits. Paintings, sculptures and engravings will coexist to bring back to life this emblematic character of the city.
If Cluny is known for its abbey and its powerful monastic order which reigned over the Christian Middle Ages, few know that the Burgundian city has also written its name in the history of painting.
It is indeed in Cluny that was born, on April 4, 1758, the son of a stone mason who was going to become, at the sides of his contemporaries David, Goya or Canova, one of the greatest painters of his time!
Who is Pierre Paul Prud'hon ?
By his remarkable predispositions for the drawing, Pierre-Paul Prud'hon benefits very early from the protection of the priest of his parish and the Benedictine monks who allow him to follow the courses of the abbey college.
The romantic spirit of his biographers in the 19th century made the abbey of Cluny the matrix of his imagination:
The Art of the 18th century (3rd series), G. Charpentier éditeur, Paris, 1882
At the age of 16, he was recommended to the bishop of Mâcon and left for Dijon to take classes with the painter François Desvoges. After a brief return to Cluny, he won the Prix de Rome of the States of Burgundy in 1784. His career was launched, and during the Empire he became the portraitist of the imperial family and the court. Royal commissions under the Restoration will complete his consecration as The Assumption of the Virgin for the chapel of the Tuileries.
© Musée Vivant Denon / Ville de Chalon-sur-Saône / P. Bernard
His work
Quoted by Sylvain Laveissière, Prud'hon ou le rêve du bonheur, Paris, RMN, 1997, p. 20
This brings to mind the great compositions for which the painter is still famous today, such as Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime, in the Louvre. Known by a single self-portrait from the years 1785-1788, the young man presents a serious face. One must refer to the effigies executed in the following century to appreciate his friendly features, his smile, his bluish eyes and his abundant flowing hair.
© Centre des monuments nationaux
Her representations
A letter of 1855 preserves a precious psychological description of him:
In the light of the painted, engraved or sculpted portraits, some of them very faithful, their authors having personally known Prud'hon, it is a XIXth century which oscillates between sensitive representations and official solemnity.
David d'Angers, Charles-François Nanteuil, Pierre-Paul Darbois will go into the romantic vein with sculpted representations animated by the power of creative genius. Others, such as Charles Fournier, François Buffet, Louis-Emile Truffot, focused on more official effigies, portraits with an academic tone in which the medal of the Legion of Honor that Napoleon had awarded to Prud'hon at the Salon of 1808 ostensibly appears.
© Reproduction Benjamin Gavaudo