When David was called upon to paint Napoleonic
pictures he painted them under protest, and yet these, with his
portraits, constitute his best work. In portraiture he was uncommonly
strong at times.
[Illustration: FIG. 61.--INGRES. OEDIPUS AND SPHINX. LOUVRE.]
After the Restoration David, who had been a revolutionist, and then an
adherent of Napoleon, was sent into exile; but the influence he had
left and the school he had established were carried on by his
contemporaries and pupils. Of the former Regnault (1754-1829), Vincent
(1746-1816), and Prudhon (1758-1823) were the most conspicuous. The
last one was considered as out of the classic circle, but so far as
making his art depend upon drawing and composition, he was a genuine
classicist. His subjects, instead of being heroic, inclined to the
mythological and the allegorical. In Italy he had been a student of
the Renaissance painters, and from them borrowed a method of shadow
gradation that rendered his figures misty and phantom-like.
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