Jean-François Portaels
Jean-François Portaels | |
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Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, Brussels | |
Movement | Orientalist |
Jean-François Portaels or Jan Portaels
Life
Portaels was born in
Around 1841 Portaels went to
The financial reward connected to the prize allowed him to travel to Italy where he stayed in Venice, Florence and Rome. He continued to feel the pull of the Orient and travelled successively to Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Judea, Spain, Hungary and Norway. In Hungary he spent quite some time to study the typical traits of the Magyars and Romani people. During his travels he was able to paint portraits of some prominent personalities such as the viceroy of Egypt.[3]
On his return to Belgium in 1847 Portaels was appointed Director of the academy in Ghent to succeed Henri van der Haert who had died. He remained in this position for three years.[3]
In 1849 he married Marie Hélène Navez, the daughter of his first teacher, Navez. The couple settled in Brussels in 1850.[3] A son born in 1850 died soon after his birth.[5] In 1851 he received the Grand Cordon in the Order of Leopold. When Navez resigned from the Brussels Academy, Portaels was asked to replace him. He declined, however, because he deemed the conditions offered to him not to be acceptable and he preferred to maintain his independence. Eugène Simonis was appointed director in his stead. Portaels was admitted as a member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium in 1855.[3]
After his wife died in the same year, he moved in with his father-in-law Navez.[5] From 1858 Portaels took over the private studio of Navez, in which he had studied himself. This studio which was referred to as 'atelier libre' (free studio) played an important role in the training of the next generation of Belgian painters. In 1863 Portaels reconnected with the Brussels Academy as he accepted to teach its drawing and painting course. After he gave up this post in 1865 he dedicated even more time to the education of young artists in his studio.
Portaels was in demand as a portrait painter and also received many orders from the Belgian state and religious institutions, including the frescoes decorating the old Chapel of the Brothers of Christian Doctrine for which he used the innovative water glass technique.
In 1870 he started to travel again spending most of his time in Algeria. He returned to Brussels in 1874. On 1 January 1878 he was appointed the director of the
He died in Schaerbeek.[3]
Work and influence
Portaels was a prolific artist who practised many genres: history painting, portraiture, Orientalist art, genre art and landscape painting. While his main focus was on Orientalist art and portraiture, he was in demand as a painter of biblical scenes and his works can still be found in many churches in Belgium such as in the
Portaels remained removed from the conventions of his time in the way he treated his subjects, as exemplified in his classic vision of the exotic theme of the Oriental woman.[11] He returned numerous times to the aesthetic type of the 'Oriental woman' which he depicted with typically arched eyebrows and languid, almond-shaped eyes. These works are executed in a rather stiff manner.[3] Only in his rare portraits of children did he attain more spontaneity such as in the Portrait of a young Arabic girl (At Jean Moust Gallery).[12] Portaels is seen as the principal painter who led the fashion for Orientalism in Belgium.[13]
From the mid-1850s the Belgian government began to promote monumental art in Belgium. It provided financial assistance to artists on various projects. The promotion of monumental art dealing with episodes from the Belgian national history was regarded by the government of the young Belgian state as an important means of creating a national identity. The Belgian prime minister Charles Rogier was in particular in support of this movement. Portaels and Jean Baptiste van Eycken, also a pupil of François-Joseph Navez, helped launch the monumentalism movement in Belgium. They did this by introducing into Belgium new fresco techniques such as water glass painting, which they had studied abroad. Water glass painting is a technique of mural painting, intended to resist the effects of damp and pollution, that was invented and popular in the 19th century. It is a form of fresco painting.[14] Portaels used the water glass technique at the old Chapel of the Brothers of Christian Doctrine (demolished in the 19th century). Here he and Victor Lagye created 20 historical scenes with this technique. Portaels also used this technique to decorate the tympanum of the Church of St. James on Coudenberg in Brussels with a scene showing the Blessed Virgin as a comforter of the needy. Portaels also decorated the drawing room of the Brussels home of his friend doctor Nollet with scenes from the history of medicine. He was assisted by Joseph Stallaert and Albert Roberti, also pupils of Navez. No further monumentalist works by Portaels are known. The monumentalist movement was subsequently taken up by artists such as Jan Swerts and Godfried Guffens who had come into contact with the movement in Germany.[15]
Portaels eminent place in the history of contemporary Belgian art is due to his influence as a teacher of the next generation of Belgian artists such as Belgian painters
Gallery
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Sweet flowers
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The witch
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Young girl and her governess
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Sisters
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Jealous woman
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Esther
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Portrait of Albert De Vleeshouwer
See also
Notes
- ^ Also spelled: Jean-François Portaëls and Jean François Portaels
- ^ a b Jean François Portaels at the Netherlands Institute for Art History (in Dutch)
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Edmond-Louis de Taeye, Les artistes belges contemporains. Leur vie, leurs œuvres, leur place dans l'art, Castaigne, Brussels, 1894, pp. 9–25 (in French)
- ^ Jean-François Portaels, Choosing the rose at Christie's
- ^ a b c d Linda Van Santvoort, Jean-François Portaels in: Epitaaf vereniging voor funeraire archeologie, Number 29, Oct./Nov/Dec., pp. 3–4 (in Dutch)
- ^ a b Jean-François Portaels, Portrait de belle orientale at Pierre Bergé & Associés (in French)
- ^ Judith Ogonovszky-Steffens, Jean Portaels, un Académicien au service du comte et de la comtesse de Flandre La face "cachée" de l'artiste in: Koregos revue et encyclopédie multimédia des arts (in French)
- ^ Handelsblad (Het) 15-05-1881
- ^ Cyclopedia of painters and paintings, Volume 3 edited by John Denison Champlin, Charles Callahan Perkins
- ^ Restauratie triptiek Jean-François Portaels at the website of the city of Vilvoorde (in Dutch)
- ^ Jean-François Portaels (1818–1895), Mauresque de Tanger at Peinture Orientaliste, Peinture Contemporaine Marocaine (in French)
- ^ Jean-François Portaels, Portrait of a young Arabic girl at Jean Moust
- ^ Théo van Rysselberghe, Exhibition Catalogue, Palais des beaux-arts (Brussels, Belgium), Haags Gemeentemuseum Mercatorfonds, 2006, p. 20
- ^ 'Water-glass painting' in Oxford Reference
- ^ Anna Bergmans, Middeleeuwse muurschilderingen in de 19de eeuw: studie en inventaris van middeleeuwse muurschilderingen in Belgische kerken, Leuven University Press, 1998, pp. 20–21 (in Dutch)
External links
- Media related to Jean-François Portaels at Wikimedia Commons