Portraits of Napoleon i

the portraits of Napoleon i indicate the representations painted, engraved, and carved of the general and consul Napoleon Bonaparte, become emperor under the name of Napoleon. Realized of sound living at ends of propaganda, they after its death were intended to commemorate the Napoleonean Légende
Napoleon i is the Head of State of the era post-revolutionist more portraituré. With the capacity, its effigy underwent changes which do not coincide inevitably with the real evolution of its aspect due to the age or the disease. Requirements of propaganda obliged the artists to follow the official directives dictated by the capacity to show to the First Consul then the Empereur under his best day. It is about Napoleon that arose with the most acuity the problem of the resemblance in the official portraits.

Chronology

First representations

It is the echo given to the decisive action of Bonaparte the 13 vendémiaire which encourages the artists with portraiturer for the first time the new hero of the day, engravings appear a general which one has evil to recognize the features, and are often the fruit of the imagination of the engravers who did not see it. The same applies during the first countryside of Italy, whose press reports the victories. Artists like Vernet and Naudet paint the battles of Lodi and Arcole, but without distinguishing the general-in-chief. There too in the absence of the model, the draftsmen and engravers are obliged to invent to satisfy the curiosity of the public, curious to know the features of Napoléon.
Only those which have opportunity of approaching it or to belong to its entourage succeed in representing it in a resembling way. It is the case of the painters and sculptors who accompany it in Italy and belong to the court that it was constituted in the castle of Mombello meadows of Milan.

Large, Appiani, Bacler of Alba and Guerin

Two artists dispute the privilege to have been the first to paint the portrait of Napoleon, Andrea Appiani, and Antoine Jean Gros, they were number of the artists invited by Bonaparte to follow it in its conquests, and both show us a general whose aspect is well defined, proof if it is that they painted the same person. The portrait of Appiani is the first with being reproduced in the form of engraving, and diffuses a resembling image of Napoleon near the French who want to know it. That the Large one must wait until 1800 so that the general public can contemplate celebrates it effigy of the general Bonaparte with the bridge of Arcole at the time of the living room of the year VIII.
Two other artists contribute to the diffusion of this same image, it acts of Jean Urbain Guerin, miniaturist of Strasbourg, former portraitist of the court of Louis XVI, who draws the figure of Bonaparte within the framework of a series of portraits of republican generals engraved by Fiesinger and widely diffused in France, and Louis Albert Guislain Bacler of Alba officer cartographer of Bonaparte, whose painting is strongly inspired by the fabric the Large one. By these four works we refer easily identifiable of the young person Bonaparte, a face dug, a piercing glance, an aquiline nose, a voluntary chin, hair length capped in “ear of dog” to the mode of time, which corresponds to description that one makes of them then the witnesses who met the general.

The return to Paris and the meeting with David

At the end of 1797, after the victory of Rivoli, as of its return to Paris Bonaparte is celebrated triumphantly. Artists belong to the crowd which presses itself to see in flesh and bone the victorious general of the Armée with Italy. Among them Louis David, invited by Bonaparte at the time of the reception given by the Directory in the honor of the victory. The painter benefits from the occasion to propose to him to make his portrait. This first collaboration between the two men correctly translates the enthusiasm of the artist for the winner of Italy, “Oh my friends what a beautiful head it has! It is pure, it is large, it is beautiful like the Antique! ” Unfortunately the table which was to be reproduced Napoleon in foot on the plate of Rivoli holding with the hand the Traité of Campo-Formio, is not only outlined and remains unfinished. It confirms perception however that Appiani and Gros had of the young conquering general. It is the time or the artists produce a big number of medals, engravings (that of Guerin is published in 1798), portraits and busts, that of plaster Corbet is exposed to the living room of 1798, the worship of the personality really starts in 1798.

The Egyptian bracket

During the Egyptian stay of Napoleon, the production of works the representative is reduced. The large tables which show the various scenes of the countryside of Egypt in fact are carried out under the Empire (the battle of the Pyramids the Large one is painted in 1811). The portraits of Napoleon going back to this period are especially drawings and sketches made by the artists who follow it to Egypt as those of Dutertre whose profiles drawn on the sharp ones are testimonys without kindness with regard to its modèles.

Consulate

The coup d'etat of the 18 brumaire and the takeover which follows really will mark the beginning of an artistic production entirely reserved for the glorification of the new Master of France. It is the time of the large equestrian portraits (David, Gros, Regnault) of the first paintings of battles (the battle the Marengo one of Lejeune) and allegories (Prud' hon). During a short moment the painters and sculptors can still represent the first consul such as it is with his physical characteristics. Even if certain like David, Appiani and Ingres already entered a logic of idealization, others like Isabey and Gros, close relations of Napoleon, still gives a faithful image of its aspect.

Allegories

As of the first countryside of Italy, Napoleon is the subject of allegorical representations. It is especially in engravings that this type of representation will find its media principal. But also in painting, particularly under the consulate. Napoleon did not snuff this manner of being painted surrounded by symbols, at the point to make remove the figures winged of the table of David, the Distribution of the Eagles and to refuse his representation carved by Canova as naked hero with the manner of the Greek gods. One of remarkable allegorical works is the triumph of Bonaparte by Prudh' one.

The First consul controls his image

After the refusal to pose for the equestrian portrait of David Bonaparte to the Large-Saint-Bernard, Napoleon does not want to be used any more directly as model to the painters and to the sculptors. Those must take as a starting point engravings or by former portraits. It is in this manner that the order of the consular portraits place to the Ingres painters was carried out, Girodet, Vien wire, Benoit, they were held to take as a starting point the portrait carried out by Gros. Some rare artists find however the occasion of the portraiturer according to nature while using of stratagems, as Isabey which benefits from a walk of Napoleon in the Gardens of Malmaison, Thomas Philips which draws it at the time of a reception, and Antonio Canova who outlines his bust (1802 Gypsotèque Canova, Possagno, Veneto, Italy) at the time them lunches and dinner in the castle of Malmaison

The hand under the waistcoat

Two portraits will make date in the iconography, the drawing of Isabey the First consul in the garden of Malmaison (1802) and the portrait by Ingres for the town of Liege (1803). All two have as a common point to show for the first Napoleon time slipping his hand under his waistcoat. Contrary to the legend it is not a question to relieve a pain with the stomach, it is in fact an iconographic license all Rhétorique, far from the representations warmongers which point out the warrior, one sees here the First consul in the calm attitude of the legislator. Well before Napoleon painting already thus showed men of being able, monarchs or soldiers, this posture symbolizing weighting takes as a starting point the installation oratory of the Greek philosopher Eschine represented thus in the ancient statuary. But the imaginary collective associates this gesture with the image of Napoleon, the point to symbolize it still today through the cinema and television. Almost all the official representations of Napoleon carried out under the Consulate and the Empire show it to us in moderated attitudes, even in the tables of battle propaganda imposes the idea of a lenient emperor. The first example of this type of representation is Napoleon visiting the pestiferous ones of Jaffa the Large one. Lejeune is one of the rare artists to show it in the fire of the action, and even in these tables Napoleon is the commander, that which directs but does not fight.

Empire, its records and its scenes of battles

Napoleon crowned (by itself) Emperor, the painters and sculptors of the consular republic quite naturally become artists of court. Taking for example Louis XIV, which inspires its cultural policy, Napoleon i made of David new Lebrun, Large new Parrocel, of Gerard a new Stone, and tries to make Antonio Canova his new Bernin. To direct this group it names in 1803 Alive directing Denon of arts, it is him which decides orders and chooses the artists who carry them out, which is not done without conflicts in particular with David.

The sovereign in imperial costume

In this part of the iconography Napoleon expresses with the most obviously its desire of legitimation of the capacity. Its portraits in costume of the sacring are inspired by the large royal portraits of Louis XIV and Louis XVI. François Gerard, Robert Lefèvre and Girodet answers the desire of the emperor by portraiturant it in a majesty all bourbonienne, while those of David and Ingres are rejected because they displease with the capacity. The symbols point out at the same time the Roman Empire (the laurel wreath), the monarchy of Old Mode (the coat bordered of hermine) and the Carolingian Empire (the throne, the hand of justice, the imperial crown, the sceptre). In its role of unifier of France torn by years of civil war, he wants to seem at the same time like the representative of a new dynasty which would succeed the Bourbons, and a republican sovereign. In these portraits of pageantry the resemblance is additional, the identification is not done by the aspect but by the symbols of the capacity, here Napoleon holds more Auguste emperor than of the former general of the army of Italy. This ancient appearance is amplified even in the statues and busts of Chaudet, Bartolini, and Canova whose Néo-classicisme is expressed in adequacy with the subject.

The Sacring of David

Battles

An industry is set up to celebrate the conquests and the victories of the Empire. Propaganda presents the failures and the defeats like victories, Napoleon is victorious in Egypt (Guerin Napoleon forgiving with revolted of Cairo ) and in Spain (Large the rendering of Madrid ) where however it underwent large reverses. The Empire, via Alive Denon, organizes contests of painting to choose that which will be able best to paint such victory according to the instructions of the capacity. A great diversity of style is expressed in these works, the naturalism of Carle Vernet, the pre-romanticism the Large one and Girodet-Trioson the neo-classicism of Hennequin and Debret, until the romanticism of the young person Horace Vernet, who exerts his talents at the any end of the Empire, French painting is enrégimentée.
Two designs of the painting of battle arise. Scenes concentrating on Napoleon and his staff, in the spirit of paintings of Parrocel, as at Large, Vernet, Gautherot etc And of the fabrics of a topographic invoice, which show the battle in its totality with the manner of a Van der Meulen, represented mainly by the work of Louis-François Lejeune.
In these military scenes Napoleon is often represented with horse in the middle of its marshals, in an attitude which points out the statue of Marc Aurèle. One never sees it fighting, nor to even hold up a weapon with the difference of Murat painted by Gros in the battle of Aboukir saber to the hand, melting on his enemies. On the contrary it adopts an attitude posed, even on spot of combat the emperor is of representation.

Napoleon in small uniform

Apart from paintings of pageantry, another shape of official portraits developed under the Empire. Napoleon presents himself in uniform in foot or equestrian portrait. These tables are also government orders except the portrait by David.

In foot

It is Isabey the first which represents the first Consul in the uniform of colonel of the hunters to horse, with the small black hat without gallon which became the trademark of Napoleon and immortalise its silhouette. This one admired Frederic II of Prussia and would have taken as model the modest form of the Prussian monarch by adopting to him also a simple behavior slicing with the chamarrés uniforms of its marshals and especially of Murat and its extravagant behaviors. The full-length portraits obey codes as strict as the portraits of pageantry, and make following the consular portraits. They represent the capacity, but symbolize it differently. The throne room makes place to a simple study, the elements of the capacity, sceptre, sphere, hand of justice, crown absent, and are replaced by decorations which decorate its uniform. Napoleon poses in the calm attitude of the legislator, with a hand under the waistcoat and the other indicating of the sheets posed on the desk. These sheets is either of the treaties or of the legal texts, in the portrait of David it is an extract of the Civil code which is illustrated there. There are variations in different the portraits, the uniform is that of the hunters with horse, or that of pomegranates to foot of the Garde, the interiors represent the offices of the Tuileries or those of the Château of Saint-Cloud. Robert Lefèvre was the large specialist in this type of portrait, with also to a lesser extent François Gerard, and even if David made one similar portrait and in answer to a private ordering of Lord Douglas, this one is one of most representative of the kind.

With horse

The representations of Napoleon with horse were more frequent in the tables of battles than in the individual portraits. On the three equestrian portraits carried out under the Consulate, Bonaparte with the Large Saint-Bernard, of David (Malmaison 1800), the First Consul distributing the sabers of honor the Large one (Malmaison 1801) and Napoleon to the camp of Boulogne of J.B. Regnaut (Museo Napoleonico Havana 1804), it is that of David who strongly prints himself in the collective memory and which eclipses all the other equestrian portraits realized under the reign of Napoleon, which can explain the small number of productions of this kind. This masterpiece is reproduced five times by the artist and his workshop, and makes the object of several copies and engravings which will be widely diffused. It is about this table which Napoleon decides that it is not necessary any more for him to pose, and that the resemblance is a negligible element in the representation of sound effigie.
In 1810 Joseph Chabord clearly carries out a portrait of Napoleon in the posture of the statue of Marc Aurèle on a gray horse dominating the plate of Wagram (Muséo Napoleonico of Rome 1810); one can also announce that of Carle Vernet on a dark horse bai known by engraving, and one of the last painted under the Empire, about 1814, by his son Horace Vernet.

The Emperor taken on the sharp one

Napoleon refusing to pose, that does not prevent certain artists or draftsmen to seek with the portraiturer without his knowledge. By their spontaneousness these sketches escape the codes from the ancient style, which superimposes the face of Napoleon with that of the Roman Emperors, in fact rare ocular testimonys inform us about his physical evolution. Under the Directory and the Consulate, Large, David and Isabey in their drafts the features of Bonaparte had already seized. Under the Empire, Girodet benefitting from a mass to the palate of Saint-Cloud, seizes the features of the Emperor in 1812 (Museum of Chateauroux), in a contemporary drawing of the portrait of David. It is however not the same man who seems to be portraituré so much the sketch insists on his physical decline. If David gives to the emperor a light plumpness, Girodet makes a man with the features bouffis of it and prematurely out-of-date, it has only forty-three years and appears sixty of them, overwork and the pathological signs completed to change its appearance. The same year it painted the portrait of Napoleon in imperial costume, of very an other invoice. Other testimonys show it in the middle of its soldiers in an attitude different from the tables of battle. At Benjamin Zix it is represented dormant with the bivouac with Wagram, and one of the images most representative of Napoleon at the time of the retirement of Russia is the drawing of Faber of Faur, or it heats the hands close to Pnewa.

The Napoleonean anti caricature

Under the Napoleonean mode, the press is muzzled and cannot emit criticisms against the Head of the State, any satirical drawings are prohibited. The caricature develops against Napoleon in the countries opposed to its policy, most obstinate to ridicule it is without question England, yesterday criticizes wild Revolution, whose caricatures introduce under one day ridiculous and cruel its person and her action. The draftsmen hasten to dismount all the codes of the official representation, Napoleon is introduced as a dwarf go away - war, the saber held up out of the sleeve, always in situations with its disadvantage. Isaac Cruikshank, Thomas Rowlandson, and John Cawse leave drawing often wild, but it is especially James Gillray which is shown most pitiless in its critic of the mode, by putting it in scene such tiny GULLIVER at the kingdom of England symbolized by the Brobdingnag giants, or in fox being made drive out by the pack of the king George III, insistent on the illegitimate character of the mode, and making pass " Boney" for insane a dangerous loan to absorb Europe. Less known the Russian caricaturists are quite as wild in their attacks against Napoleon, and the fall being profiled other countries let express their criticisms like Prussia, Spain, and even France after the first abdication.

The fall and the exile

After the disastrous countryside of Russia, and until the Hundred Days, the production of works celebrating the glory of Napoleon, will be reduced little by little. Projects of large tables are stopped before even being born and will remain with the state of outline, as it that which Gros had envisaged to do on an episode of the countryside of Russia the fire of Moscow . Only some portraits and busts are carried out during this period. Not having more official orders, the artists give up little by little the Napoleonean topics to return to personal creations, as David who completes in 1814 his Léonidas in Thermopyles that it had begun 14 years more early. As of the first abdication, the majority of the artists join in Louis XVIII, in fact the case of Large, Gerard, or Lefèvre become official painters of the mode of the Bourbons while David by fidelity with Napoleon prefers to exile itself in Brussels. After the fall, official tables and sculptures are garaged in the reserves, others, are carried by English or the Prussians, and even destroyed, the such statue of Napoleon by Chaudet which decorated the Vendôme column, which is molten in 1816.

Grey waxbill

One of the last representations of Napoleon made of alive sound is painted by English at the time of his boat on Bellerophon which takes it along to Sainte-Hélène, it is a fabric carried out by Charles Locke Eastlake in 1815. Seeing the deposed emperor on the bridge of the ship in roads of the port of Plymouth, it takes sketches according to nature and carries out the table which is exposed in 1815 to Picadilly, and which will have an enormous success in particular thanks to its reproduction in engraving. One sees for the last Napoleon time in uniform of hunter with horse of the guard carrying the bicornuate one, pretense to make a distance echo with the portrait of Isabey. No artist accompanies the emperor with Sainte-Hélène, they are the close relations of its entourage, and the guards charged to supervise it who make drawings taken on the sharp one of the prisoner of Longwood. These sketches give indications on the progress report of its disease, and are last testimonys on the aspect of Napoléon.
With its death it is drawn several times by close witnesses who collect this moment and leave a last portrait of Napoleon, it is also for Hudson Lowe a political need to prove the death of the famous prisoner while asking the Marryat captain to carry out a drawing which would be a graphic proof of its death.

The death mask

The circumstance of the catch of print of the death mask one makes a subject of controversy of it. There exist at least four alleged masks of the emperor, that of Arnott, that of Antommarchi considered as masks it official, that of Burton, and that of the museum of Baden (which would have been taken of alive sound). Each one gives an image different of Napoleon.

Napoleonean legends

After the death of Napoleon each capacity seeks to adapt the Napoleonean heritage, Louis Philippe organizes the return of ashes in 1840, Napoleon III of share his filiation is presented in the form of a successor legitimates and the 3rd republic calls some with the figure of the conqueror of Europe to prepare revenge after the defeat of 1870. The official artists follow the movement.

Memory with the legend

The martyrology around the exile of Napoleon will be established with the publication of the memorial of Grey waxbill of the count Emmanuel Mow-Box in 1823, from the painters will relay the Napoleonean memory, and will illustrate the accounts of the witnesses of the exile. The first were Horace Vernet and Steuben which paint it as a prisoner and in his bed of died while taking as a starting point the accounts by Merchant or Mow-Box. Refused with the living room by the capacity of the Restoration the apotheosis of Napoleon painted in 1821 by Horace Vernet, is one of the first outstanding works, it shows fall it from the emperor surrounded of the figures of Kléber, Desaix, Lannes, Lasalle, and Ney. Steuben paints exiled dictating its memories with the Gourgaud general, and in the eight times of Napoleon (1826) it summarizes his course through eight bicornuate. The legendary imagery is set up.

Under Louis Philippe

Louis Philippe adapts the legend of Napoleon, at ends of national reconciliation after the years of divisions of the Restoration, and the days of the Glorious Three which resulted from this. The first strong signal was into 1833 to place the statue of the Emperor carved by Charles Emile Seurre, in top of the column of the Vendôme place. This statue ordered in 1831 replaced that carried out by Chaudet which showed it as an Roman Emperor, Seurre chooses to show it in the silhouette of the small corporal in uniform, frock coat and bicornuate, the hand in its gilet.

The historical museum of Versailles

In 1832 Louis Philippe decides to transform the castle of Versailles into national museum of the French history. Order had placed to the painters to carry out fabrics reporting its glorious hours of the Middle Ages with Louis-Philippe. One of the versions of the Bonaparte to the Large Saint-Bernard of David who was with the Invalids was hung in one of the rooms of the castle, of the same the distribution of the eagles as well as a counterpart of the Sacre , and the Battle of Austerlitz painted by Gerard in 1808 decorated the gallery of the battles. Horace Vernet and Philippoteau realize for the gallery of the battles of large tables representing Napoleon with Rivoli (1837), Iena, Wagram and Friedland (1836). These two painters take again the codes of the representations of the emperor in the scenes of battles painted under the empire by showing it calm in the middle of its staff, but remove the character epic to keep only the anecdote of it.

Paul Delaroche

Painter of history prolific, Paul Delaroche, was interested in the Napoleonean myth and carried out some remarkable paintings in particular Napoleon in Fontaineblau which represents the deposed emperor after his abdication. This work will have sufficient impact to eclipse the good-byes of fontaineblau of Horace Vernet on the same subject. It paints as Bonaparte crossing the Alps while taking as a starting point the work as Thiers with writing on the history of the consulate and the Empire like a realistic answer to the idealized portrait of David

Under Napoleon III

After the accession with the capacity of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte nephew of Napoleon 1st, a new celebration of the Napoleonean legend is set up. Several equestrian statues of Napoleon are set up, and academic painting monopolizes the image of the emperor. In 1861 Napoleon III makes replace the statue of Seurre on the Vendôme column by a new effigy in Roman costume, carried out by Augustin-Alexandre Dumont.

Academic Napoleon

Under Louis-Philippe, the painting of history was shared by two esthetics, the neo-classic tradition inherited David, and the Romantisme representative of modernity in 1830-1840. Napoleon III as for him, supports academic art against holding of the realistic school and later of impressionism. Those Ci forsake the painting of history to stick on subject contemporaries and painting of kind. Napoleonean painting then is primarily represented by the painters firemen, for which the allegorical and meticulous style is rewarded by purchases for the states and prices for the academy for the Art schools to the Art galleries.

Meissonnier

The painter most representative of this period is Ernest Meissonnier, which paints under Napoleon III several paintings evoking the Napoleonean history, one of the characteristics of Meissonier is not to seek to evoke a precise event of the Napoleonean wars but rather to suggest the breath of the epopee. Its most known work is 1814 which represents the emperor and his staff during the countryside of France.

Under the third republic

During the fall of the Empire second the figure of Napoleon is confused with that of its successor, the statue of Napoleon by Dumont being on the Vendomme column is again cut down by the communards. But contrary to the Commune, the new republican capacity prefers to once again recover the image of the emperor to symbolize the revenge of the defeat of 1870. To the First World War, the living room official of painting continue to expose paintings on Napoleonean subjects.

Detailed Edouard

Disciple of Meissonier, Detailed Edouard, until his death in 1912, continues the Napoleonean epic and paints several fabrics of allegorical invoice, his portraits of Napoleon are painted with the same preoccupation with a historical exactitude, in particular in the care taken in the details of the uniforms, one of his the most noticed works is the dream which shows deadened soldiers of 1870 révant of the large army. In this work it does not show Napoleon but it idealizes the Napoleonean army.

Documents

Testimonys and anecdotes

Antoine-Jean Gros writes with his mother in 1797 in connection with the portrait of Bonaparte with Arcole:

I have just begun the portrait of the general; but one cannot even give the name of meeting to little time that it gives me. I then to have time to choose my colors; it is necessary that I resign myself to paint only the character of his aspect, and after that, of my to better give the turning of a portrait to it|Raymond Eschollier Large , painter of the Emperor April 1869 p.242

Jean-Baptiste Isabey, about its first portrait of Bonaparte:

There, I carried out the first full-length portrait of the Bonaparte general. Morning at the evening, I saw it walking solitairement in the park, the hands behind the back, absorptive in his designs; it was easy for me to seize its pensive expression and the aspect of its turning. This finished portrait, I presented it to the general: the resemblance him rained about it, it especially congratulated me to be able to work thus without making pose my model|Edmond Taigny, J. - B. Isabey, its life and its works , 1859, p.24

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