Part 1. The formulative years
Self portrait by Léon Bonnat (1855)
The artist I am looking at today was one of the leading French painters of the nineteenth century. He was a colossal figure in 19th-century French art, a painter whose career managed to tie together the past academic traditions with the proliferating trends of modernism. Let me introduce you to Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat.
Madame Bonnat, mère de l’artiste by Léon Bonnat
Bonnat was born in Bayonne, in the French Basque Country in the far southwestern corner of France, close to the Spanish border, on June 20th1833. He is remembered for his forceful, expressive and emotional portraits and yet he also made his name as talented history and religious painter, and an influential educator, who also built up a great personal art collection.
Portrait of Madame Melida, sister of Léon Bonnat by Léon Bonnat
In 1846. his family moved from France to Spain and went to live in the city of Madrid where his father took over the running of a bookshop. For thirteen years old Léon, who had developed a love of art this move was opportune. In the Spanish capital, Bonnat received his foundational art education, studying under the tutelage of José de Madrazo y Agudo one of the primary exponents of the Neoclassical style in Spain. He was also the patriarch of a family of artists that included his sons Federico and Luis; and his grandsons, Raimundo and Ricardo. Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz, and his father were leading figures in Spanish academic art, and Federico was a renowned portraitist.
The Artist’s Sister by Léon Bonnat
Bonnat began his artistic education at the Academia Real de las Bellas Artes de San Fernando, in the studio of Federico Madrazo. Studying under Federico de Madrazo, he was plunged into the rich artistic heritage of Spain and he spent numerous hours in the Prado Museum, copying the works of Spanish Golden Age masters such as Diego Velázquez, Jusepe de Ribera, Francisco de Zurbarán, and Francisco Goya. These painters and their artworks had a great influence on Bonnat through their profound realism, dramatic use of chiaroscuro and the dignified way they depicted their subjects and their styles left an indelible mark on Bonnat’s developing style. Their portraits often used sombre palettes and this textural richness of Spanish art resonated deeply with him, and this style provided a contrast to the often more refined idealized French academic tradition that he would come across in his later years.
Job by Léon Bonnat (1880)
Léon’s father died in 1853 and Léon and his family moved back to France and their hometown of Bayonne. Now back “home” Léon continued his art studies at the Ecole de Dessin de Bayonne, where one of his tutors was Bernard-Romain Julien, a French printmaker, lithographer, painter and draughtsman. In 1854, with a stipend of 1500 francs from the city of Bayonne, Bonnat left Bayonne and travelled north to the French capital. His move to the French capital and the tuition costs were partly funded by the City of Bayonne. Having attained a strong foundation from his training in Madrid, Bonnat was able to enter the well-respected Ecole des Beaux-Arts. There, where he studied in the atelier of Léon Cogniet, a much admired historical and portrait painter. Cogniet’s studio was known for its demanding academic training, with great emphasis on students’ ability, emphasizing their drawing, and composition skills. The students would also spend time studying the works of the old Masters. For a time whilst in Paris Bonnat briefly studied with Paul Delaroche, another prominent academic painter.
The Good Samaritan by Léon Bonnat
Adam and Eve Finding the Body of Abel by Léon Bonnat
Now in Paris, Bonnat began to create his reputation as an up-and-coming artist. In 1857, for the first time, he submitted paintings to the Paris Salon with works such as The Good Samaritan and Adam and Eve Finding the Body of Abel which demonstrated his skill in depicting religious and historical subjects, which confirmed the influence of his Spanish and Italian studies.
Villa Medici, Rome.
In 1857, whilst studying at the École des Beaux-Arts, Bonnat competed for the prestigious Prix de Rome in Painting, The Prix de Rome in Painting was one of the most prestigious awards in the field of fine arts. It was created in 1663, and this annual competition was organized by the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture (Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture) in Paris. Each year the winners of the Prix de Rome were sent to the Villa Medici in Rome to perfect their artistic training for a number of years. The prize awarded to the winner was a scholarship that allowed promising artists to study cost-free in Rome. It was the goal of every early-career artist to win the award. By rewarding talented young artists with a scholarship and a chance to stay at the Villa Medici in Rome, it was also seen as a way in which it helped to promote academic art and encourage artists to hone their skills. Bonnat, after two failures in 1854 and 1855 had made another attempt to win the prize in 1857.
The Resurrection of Lazarus by Léon Bonnat (1857)
Each year, entrants were given a subject to focus on and then present their submission in front of a demanding jury. This fierce competition encouraged artists to push their limits and express all their creativity. The year, 1857, Bonnat attempted to win the award the subject matter chosen by the organisers was Lazarus. Léon Bonnat submitted his work entitled The Resurrection of Lazarus and he was awarded the second prize, which unfortunately did not include the full French state scholarship.
Lazarus Raised from the Dead by Charles Sellier
The winner of that year’s prize was the French painter who specialized in mythological and historical subjects, Charles Sellier with his painting, Lazarus Raised from the Dead.
Portrait of Léon Bonnat by Edgar Degas
Bonnat was pleased to receive the second-place award but disappointed that his prize did not allow him a three-year all expenses paid stay at the Villa Medici which was only awarded to the winner of the competition. However, thanks to the financial assistance of a further 1500 francs granted to him by the city of Bayonne, as well as money raised by some of the town’s wealthy citizens including the Personnaz family, a wealthy Jewish family of fabric exporters, he was able to spend the next three years in Rome, where he was able to study the works of the great Italian Masters, particularly the works of Raphael, Titian, and Michelangelo, as well as the powerful naturalism of Caravaggio. During his stay in Rome, he also became friends with Edgar Degas, Gustave Moreau, Jean-Jacques Henner, and the sculptor Henri Chapu.
St Vincent de Paul Taking the Place of a Galley Slave by Léon Bonnat (1865)
Bonnat remained in the Italian capital from 1858 until 1861. Bonnat’s early paintings, such as his 1865 St Vincent de Paul Taking the Place of a Galley Slave were renowned for their dramatic intensity and his religious works of that time strengthened his reputation in this genre. This painting was based on a part of Vincent;s life. Vincent de Paul was an Occitan French Catholic priest who dedicated himself to serving the poor and became Chaplain-General of the Galleys in 1619, while working for the General of the Galleys of France, Philippe-Emmanuel de Gondi. This position took him to the port of Marseilles in 1622. When not at sea, the galley slaves, or galères, would spend their time in a squalid prison in the fortified port’s prison. Vincent was horrified at the state of the prisoners and their environs and complained to his patron M. Gondi that such a situation could not continue if France was truly a Christian kingdom. Vincent began ministering to the galley slaves, providing aid to the Catholic prisoners, as well as to the enslaved Muslims and Protestants. At the same time, he instituted important reforms in relation to how these men were treated, regardless of their faith, and set about building a hospital in Marseilles to treat the galley slaves. Due to a lack of steady funding, the General Hospital of Galley Slaves, as it would eventually be called, was not finished until 1646.
Because of Léon’s artistic prowess and being looked upon as a leading academic artist, he was often asked to act as a juror for the annual Salon exhibitions, and in 1867, he was his nominated to the Legion of Honor.
…….to be continued.
Most of the information for these blogs about Léon Bonnat came from Wikpedia and these blogs:
