Ingres, Then and Now (Re Visions : Critical Studies in the History and Theory of Art) (Re Visions)

178 Pages·2000·11.67 MB·English

by  Adrian Rifkin

INGRES THEN, AND NOW
‘At last, here is a work on Ingres such as we no longer dared hope
for: audacious, sulphurous, scandalous. Until now, Ingres has been
imprisoned by his pious mythology as if by a foul swamp. The
deconstruction of the artist is therefore an undertaking in the public
interest, which Rifkin fulfils with a rare ingenuity. We must also note
that the most despicable artist of the French school, egotistic, sexist,
racist and sectarian, comes out as the hero-in-spite-of-all of this
magnificently dark book. It should be its only failure!’
Régis Michel, Chief Curator at the Musée du Louvre
‘This is an unusually fine and intelligent study, which will prove
compelling to anyone thinking about the nature of modern art and the
situation of the modern artist in nineteenth and twentieth century
France. Rifkin offers the reader an array of brilliant and unexpected
insights—at times focused on Ingres, at others opening out onto new
ways of thinking about modernity and the fabric of modern artistic
culture.’
Alex Potts, Professor of History of Art, University of Reading
Ingres Then, and Now is an innovative study of one of the best-known French
artists of the nineteenth century, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Adrian Rifkin
re-evaluates Ingres’ work in the context of a variety of literary, musical and
visual cultures which are normally seen as alien to him. Reviewing Ingres’
paintings as a series of fragmentary symptoms of the commodity cultures of
nineteenth-century Paris, Adrian Rifkin draws the artist away from his familiar
association with the Academy and the Salon.
Rifkin sets out to show how, by thinking of the historical archive as a form of
the unconscious, we can renew our understanding of nineteenth-century
conservative or academic cultures by reading them against their ‘other’. He
situates Ingres in the world of the Parisian Arcades, and traces the emergence of
bizarre symptoms in Ingres’ early work, symptoms which open him to a variety
of conflicting readings and appropriations. He concludes by examining his
ii
importance for the great French art critic Jean Cassou on the one hand, and in
making a bold, contemporary gay appropriation on the other.
Ingres Then, and Now transforms the popular image we have of Ingres. It argues
that the figure of the artist is fixed in neither time nor place—there is neither an
essential man named Ingres, nor a singular body of his work— but is an effect of
many complex and overlapping historical processes.
RE VISIONS: CRITICAL STUDIES IN THE HISTORY
AND THEORY OF ART
Series editors: Jon Bird and Lisa Tickner
Middlesex University
.Art history has been transformed as an academic discipline over the last twenty
years. The ‘new’ art history is no longer new, and that widely used and useful
label has come to seem dangerously over-tidy.
Re Visions responds to the arrival of new ways of thinking in art histoty in a
series of lucid and accessible studies by authors distinguished in their fields.
Each book examines the usefulness of innovative concepts and methods, not in
abstract terms but through the analysis of particular art objects, ways of writing
about art, and cultural institutions and practices.
Other titles in the series:
CIVILIZING RITUALS
Inside public art museums
Carol Duncan
FEMINISM AND CONTEMPORARY ART
The revolutionary power of women’s laughter
Jo Anna Isaak
DIFFERENCING THE CANON
Feminist desire and the writing of art’s histories
Griselda Pollock
INGRES THEN, AND NOW
Adrian Rifkin
London and New York
First published 2000
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection
of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 2000 Adrian Rifkin
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Rifkin, Adrian
Ingres then, and now/Adrian Rifkin
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique, 1780–1867 Criticism and interpretation.
I. Title.
ND553.I5R53 2000
759.4–dc21 99–42448
ISBN 0-203-97646-0 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-415-06697-2 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-06698-0 (pbk)
À Denis
(…et je vous admire)
CONTENTS
List of illustrations viii
Acknowledgements xi
Preliminary: from the bizarre to the sublime 1
Introduction: the formation of a palimpsest 9
1 Ingres and the Arcades 43
2 Académie, or the colour white and the childhood of art criticism 87
3 A filament in the tissues of modernity 117
Index 157
ILLUSTRATIONS
1 Self-Portrait at the Age of 24, 1804, courtesy of Musée Condé, 2
Chantilly
2 Chérubini and the Muse of Lyric Poetry, 1842 (detail), copyright 4
RMN, Musée du Louvre and the Agence Photographique de la
Reunion des Musées Nationaux
3 The Apotheosis of Homer, 1827 (detail), copyright RMN, Musée du 12
Louvre and the Agence Photographique de la Reunion des Musées
Nationaux
4 Ibid. (detail) 13
5 Eugène Delacroix, Ovid amongst the Scythians, 1854, courtesy of the 15
National Gallery, London
6 The Vow of Louis XIII, 1824 (detail), courtesy of the Musée Ingres, 15
Montauban, Photographie Roumagnac
7 Roman drawing, Via della Suburra (detail), courtesy of the Musée 20
Ingres, Montauban, Photographie Roumagnac
8 M.Bertin l’Aîné, 1831 (detail), courtesy of the Musée du Louvre, 20
Photographie Giraudon
9 Passage Choiseul, 1980s (detail), the author 22
10 Mme de Senonnes, 1816, copyright RMN, Musée de Nantes and the 23
Agence Photographique de la Reunion des Musées Nationaux
11 The Apotheosis of Napoleon I, 1853–1854, courtesy of the Musées de 29
la Ville de Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Photographie Giraudon
12 The Apotheosis of Homer, 1827, copyright RMN, Musée du Louvre 30
and the Agence Photographique de la Reunion des Musées Nationaux
13 Bather, 1864 (detail), courtesy of Harvard University Art Museums 31
14 Odalisque with a Slave, 1839 (detail), courtesy of Fogg Art Museum, 32
Harvard University Art Museums
15 Virgil Reading from the Aeneid, drawing, 1850→, courtesy of 33
Harvard University Art Museums
16 Mme Vesey and Her Daughter, drawing, 1816 (detail), courtesy of 34
Harvard University Art Museums
17 La Famille Stamaty, 1818, copyright RMN, Musée du Louvre and the 3 4
Agence Photographique de la Reunion des Musées Nationaux
18 Virgil Reading from the Aeneid, 1812, courtesy of Musée des 35
Augustins, Toulouse
19 Passage Vivienne, 1980s, the author 44
ix
20 Mme de Senonnes, 1816 (detail), copyright RMN, Musée de Nantes 44
and the Agence Photographique de la Reunion des Musées Nationaux
21 The Apotheosis of Homer, 1827 (detail), copyright RMN, Musée du 46
Louvre and the Agence Photographique de la Reunion des Musées
Nationaux
22 Mme Moitessier, 1856, courtesy of the National Gallery, London 49
23 Hercules in Arcadia, Pompeian wall painting before 79 CE 50
24 Antiochus and Stratonice, 1840, Musée Condé, Chantilly, 52
Photographie Giraudon
25 Passage Vivienne, 1980s, the author 53
26 Via della Suburra, courtesy of the Musée Ingres, Montauban, 55
Photographie Roumagnac
27 View towards Santa Maria Maggiore, courtesy of the Musée Ingres, 56
Montauban, Photographie Roumagnac
28 François Premier Receives the Last Breath of Leonardo da Vinci, 61
1818, Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris,
copyright PMVP
29 Henri IV Playing with His Children, while the Spanish Ambassador is 62
Being Admitted, 1817, courtesy of Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts
de la Ville de Paris, copyright PMVP
30 Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini, courtesy of Musée Condé, 64
Chantilly, Photographie Giraudon
31 Chérubini and the Muse of Lyric Poetry, 1842, copyright RMN, 68
Musée du Louvre and the Agence Photographique de la Reunion des
Musées Nationaux
32 Joan of Arc, 1854, copyright RMN, Musée du Louvre and the Agence 75
Photographique de la Reunion des Musées Nationaux
33 Jupiter and Thetis, 1811, Musée Granet, Aix en Provence, 89
Photographie Giraudon.
34 The Family of Augustus Listening to Virgil Reading from the Aeneid, 90
1819, courtesy of Musée Royal, Brussels
35 La Famille Forestier, 1806, copyright RMN, Musée du Louvre and the 98
Agence Photographique de la Reunion des Musées Nationaux
36 Bonaparte as First Consul, 1804, courtesy of Musée des Beaux-Arts, 99
Liège
37 Julie Forestier, copy of Ingres self-portrait, 1806, copied by David 100
Pearce, London, 1999, courtesy of the copyist
38 Ibid. (detail) 100
39 Napoleon I on the Imperial Throne, 1806, copyright Photo-Musée de 102
l’Armée, Paris
40 Mme Rivière, Salon 1806, copyright RMN, Musée du Louvre and the 110
Agence Photographique de la Reunion des Musées Nationaux
41 Mlle Rivière, Salon 1806, copyright RMN, Musée du Louvre and the 122
Agence Photographique de la Reunion des Musées Nationaux