Horace Vernet

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Horace Vernet
Self-Portrait with Pipe, 1835
Born
Émile Jean-Horace Vernet

(1789-06-30)30 June 1789
Paris, France
Died17 January 1863(1863-01-17) (aged 73)
Paris, France
Known for
  • Painter
  • draughtsman
  • lithographer
MovementOrientalist

Émile Jean-Horace Vernet (French pronunciation: [emil ʒɑ̃ ɔʁas vɛʁnɛ]; 30 June 1789 – 17 January 1863) more commonly known as simply Horace Vernet, was a French painter of battles, portraits, and Orientalist subjects.

Biography

Italian Brigands Surprised by Papal Troops

Early career

Vernet was born to

Claude Joseph Vernet. He was born in the Paris Louvre, while his parents were staying there during the French Revolution. Vernet quickly developed a disdain for the high-minded seriousness of academic French art work which was distinguished by art influenced by Classicism, and decided to paint subjects taken mostly from contemporary life. During his early career, when Napoleon Bonaparte was in power, he began depicting the French soldier in a more familiar, vernacular manner rather than in an idealized, Davidian fashion; he was just twenty when he exhibited the Taking of an Entrenched Camp[1]
Some other of his paintings that represent French soldiers in a more direct, less idealizing style, include Dog of the Regiment, Trumpeter's Horse, and Death of Poniatowski.

Restoration France

Vernet in 1858
The Angel of Death, 1851
Street Fighting on Rue Soufflot, Paris, June 25, 1848[2]

He gained recognition during the Bourbon Restoration for a series of battle paintings commissioned by the duc d'Orleans, the future King Louis-Philippe. Critics marvelled at the incredible speed with which he painted.[3] Many of his paintings made during this early phase of his career were "noted for their historical accuracy as well as their charged landscapes".[4] Examples of paintings in this style include his Four Battles series: The Battle of Jemappes (1821), The Battle of Montmirail (1822), The Battle of Hanau (1824), and The Battle of Valmy (1826). Enjoying equal favour with the court and with the opposition, he was appointed director of the French Academy in Rome, from 1829 to 1835.[1]

Over the course of his long career, Horace Vernet was honoured with dozens of important commissions.

Roman colonization in North Africa about 2000 years before, Horace painted pictures of French non-commissioned officers training Algerian soldiers, French engineers building Algerian roads, and French soldiers tilling Algerian fields.[5][6]

Later career

His depictions of

French Army during the Crimean War, producing several paintings, truthfully including one of the Battle of the Alma
, which was not as well received as his earlier paintings. One well known and possibly apocryphal anecdote maintains that when Vernet was asked to remove a certain obnoxious general from one of his paintings, he replied, "I am a painter of history, sire, and I will not violate the truth", hence demonstrating his fidelity to representing war.

Vernet also developed an interest in daguerreotype photography. He took photographs in Egypt as reference material for his paintings, and during a stop at Malta in March 1840 while en route to Egypt, he took the earliest known photographs of the island at Fort Manoel. Today these early photographs are believed to be lost.[7]

Vernet died in his hometown of Paris in 1863.

Literary references

In Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", Holmes claims to be related to Vernet, stating, "My ancestors were country squires... my grandmother... was the sister of Vernet, the French artist", without further clarifying whether this is Claude-Joseph Vernet, Carle Vernet, or Horace Vernet. The Holmes-Vernet connection is also central to the plot of Laurie R. King's 2024 novel, The Lantern's Dance.

Gallery

  • The Barrier of Clichy (1820)
    The Barrier of Clichy (1820)
  • Napoleon bids farewell to his Guard (1824)
    Napoleon bids farewell to his Guard (1824)
  • Napoleon at the Battle of Arcole (1826)
    Napoleon at the Battle of Arcole (1826)
  • The Battle of Valmy (1826)
    The Battle of Valmy (1826)
  • Polish Prometheus (1831)
    Polish Prometheus (1831)
  • The Duke of Orleans leaving the Palais-Royal (1832)
    The Duke of Orleans leaving the Palais-Royal (1832)
  • Hunting in the Pontine Marshes (1833)
    Hunting in the Pontine Marshes (1833)
  • Napoleon at the Battle of Friedland (1835)
    Napoleon at the Battle of Friedland (1835)
  • The Battle of Jena (1836)
    The Battle of Jena (1836)
  • The Capture of Constantine (1838)
    The Capture of Constantine (1838)
  • Scene from the Mexican Expedition in 1838 (1841)
    Scene from the Mexican Expedition in 1838 (1841)
  • Judith et Holopherne (1831)
    Judith et Holopherne (1831)
  • The Taking of the Malakoff Redoubt (1858)
    The Taking of the Malakoff Redoubt (1858)
  • An Algerian Lady Hawking (1829)
    An Algerian Lady Hawking (1829)
  • Siege of Saragossa (1819)
    Siege of Saragossa (1819)
  • Pope Julius II ordering Bramante and Michelangelo to design St Peter's Basilica (1827)
    Pope Julius II ordering Bramante and Michelangelo to design St Peter's Basilica (1827)
  • Pope Pius VIII brought to the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome (1829)
    Pope Pius VIII brought to the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome (1829)
  • Plague in Barcelona (1822)
    Plague in Barcelona (1822)

References

  1. ^ a b c  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Vernet s.v. Émile Jean Horace Vernet". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 1030–1031.
  2. ^ "Washington and Lee University". Home.wlu.edu. Archived from the original on 2013-10-12. Retrieved 2012-06-11.
  3. ^ a b Ruutz-Rees, Janet E. (Janet Emily) (1880). Horace Vernet. New York: Scribner and Welford.
  4. ^ The Art of War[s]: Paintings of Heroes, Horrors and History – Chase Maenius
  5. OCLC 959869470.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  6. JSTOR 10.7591/j.ctt20fw60j
    .
  7. ^ Bonello, Giovanni (10 February 2019). "But who was the first Maltese photographer?". Times of Malta. Archived from the original on 30 June 2020.

Further reading

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