Jean-Jules-Antoine Lecomte du Nouÿ
Jean -Jules -Antoine Lecomte du Nouy ( born June 10, 1842 in Paris, France, † February 19, 1923 ) was a French history, genre and portrait painter and sculptor. He was known by mythological and religious motifs as well as by his Orientalism associated works.
Life
Lecomte du Nouy, son of Jules Michel Lecomte and his wife Félicité du Nouy Alexandrine and older brother of the later architect André Lecomte du Nouy (1844-1914), one after another student of Charles Gleyre (1806-1874), Émile was Signol (1804-1892 ) and Jean -Léon Gérôme ( 1824-1904 ). With the painting Francesca da Rimini and Paolo in the hell he made his debut in 1863 at the Paris Salon, where he regularly took part in the subsequent period. In 1866 he was at the age of 24 years for the invocation of Neptune's an honor medal of the Paris Salon and in 1872 for the death of Jocasta, the second Grand Prix de Rome of it.
The French government bought in 1872 his painting The messenger of bad news before Pharaoh, for the Luxembourg Museum in 1873 the wizard for the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Reims, 1874 Eros - Cupid for the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Tours. In 1873 she gave, together with the Parisian City Council, Lecomte de Nouy also two large compositions for the decoration of the Parisian church of La Trinité (Paris) in order, which gave the artist a few years later: St. Vincent converted the galley convicts (1876 ) and St. Vincent supports the Alsace and Lorraine after the war of 1637 (1879 ).
He traveled to Greece and Turkey ( 1875), and later Egypt and Romania.
Jean Lecomte du Nouy died in 1923 at the age of 80 years in Paris.
The conservative, Catholic painter had on 1 August 1876 in the first marriage coming from a Jewish family Valentine Peigné - Crémieux ( 1855-1876 ), married, daughter of Alfred and Mathilde Peigne Crémieux ( 1834-1912 ) and granddaughter of Senator Adolphe Crémieux. Valentine died on 15 October of that year at the age of 21 years, but remained the connection you Nouÿs with the influential relationship of his late wife, to which Jean Cruppi belonged to exist. The second marriage he came in with Caroline Evrard (1851-1892), who bore him his only child, the future architect and archaeologist Jacques Théodore Jules Lecomte du Nouy ( 1885-1961 ). His third wife, Marie Térésa Fisanne or Fizanne (* 1892) survived him.
Honors and Awards
Exhibitions
Jean Lecomte du Nouy exhibited his work in 1863 and, with few exceptions, which is partly explained by his travels, with an amazing regularity in the annual Paris Salon, occasionally, in the salons of other cities (Munich, Gent, Vienna). He took part in the Paris Universal Exhibitions of 1878 and 1889. In the years 1892-1894 he exhibited also in Egypt ( Cairo and Alexandria salons ), from 1902 to 1906 in the Salon of the automobile clubs in Paris and in 1913 at the Salon des artistes françaises. With about 100 paintings, studies and drawings: In 2004, the Dahesh Museum of Art in New York Lecomte du Nouy the exhibition " the art of Jean Lecomte du Nouy From Homer to the Harem " devoted.
Work
Jean Lecomte du Nouÿs entire work is dedicated to the academic tradition and its enjoyed at the Paris Ecole des Beaux Arts training, where especially his last teacher, exercised Jean -Léon Gérôme, a great influence on the young artist. This and his colleague Charles Gleyre, also a teacher, you Nouÿs, were the main representatives of the neogriechischen art movement, the Lecomte de Nouy also joined.
Apart from numerous biblical topics, the motives of his first paintings, for example, inspired by the Divine Comedy of Dante ( Paolo and Francesca in hell, 1863), of the tragedies Oresteia of Aeschylus ( the Greek Sentinel, 1865) and Aias of Sophocles ( The Rage were Ajax ', 1868) and by figures such as Demosthenes ( Demosthenes practicing in the speeches, 1870) or Homer ( Homer as a beggar, 1875). Another source of inspiration delivered to the educated and erudite painter Théophile Gautier's texts as " Roman de la Momie " ( The messenger of bad news, 1872) or Montesquieu's " Lettres persanes " ( Dream Chosroes, 1875) and not least his travels. In the 1890s he turned increasingly to fashionable portraiture. During an extended stay Romania he portrayed members of the Romanian royal family and created numerous studies Portrait of Charles I of Romania and his wife Elisabeth ( Carmen Sylva ) and cardboard boxes for the decoration of the church of St. Nicholas in Iasi.
Lecomte du Nouÿs paintings carry a predominantly academic train with correct drawing and cooler, slightly dull coloration, but are characterized by fine characteristic. One of his most famous works is "The White Slave ".