Ernest Meissonier

Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier, Strolling Players, (date unknown)

French artist, Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (1815- 1891) is best known for painting miniatures in oils, with scrupulous attention to detail. He specialised in scenes of bourgeois domestic life from the 17th and 18th centuries, portraying his subjects playing chess, smoking pipes, reading books, sitting near musical instruments, or posing in the uniforms of musketeers.

He had only a brief artistic education and was largely self-taught, carefully studying the Dutch, Flemish and French painters at the Louvre.

His first submission to the Paris Salon, before he turned 20, was in 1834. Flemish Burghers, 1833-4 was a small costume piece featuring three gentlemen clad in traditional 17th century clothing. Following the success of this painting at the Salon, Meissonier painted numerous paintings in a similar style and became the most sought after painter of the decade, appealing to a wide range of collectors.

Ernest Meissonier, Flemish Burghers, 1833-4

However, in the late 1840s his style changed.

It was during the 1848 revolution in Paris, as a captain in the National Guard, that Meissonier led the troops responsible for defending the Hôtel de Ville.

It was here he witnessed the carnage of the battle first hand and in response he painted one of his most significant paintings: Memory of the Civil War, also known as The Barricade. (Meissonier painted this picture after a watercolour (Musée du Louvre) done at the scene on June 25, 1848, during the workers’ riots.)

Unlike Delacroix’s romantic painting, Liberty Leading the People, this was an unflinching depiction of the incomprehensible horror of civil war. Piles of bodies lie in the street in varying stages of decomposition after the barricade had been stormed at the Hôtel. Blue and white shirts, stained with blood, create a grim “tricolour”.

Ernest Meissonier The Barricade, Rue del la Moerellerie, June 1848

The painting is extremely realistic, Meissonier having painted every part of the canvas, the cobblestones and as the rioters, with the same attention to detail. Unlike historical paintings generally, the work seems to portray a scene observed without comment or message – which is why it is considered to be a Realist painting.

The painting received a great deal of attention when it was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1850-51 (known that year as the “Realist Salon” as there were so many realist paintings on exhibition) and is considered to be the most powerful image to emerge from the events of 1848.*

It was from about this time that he also painted large military and historical scenes, including such works as Friedland, 1807, painted between 1861-75.

Ernest Meissonier, Friedland, 1807; ca 1861-75

Meissonier worked with elaborate care and scrupulous observation, and some of his works took up to 10 years to complete.

In 1889 he accepted the position of president of the Exposition Universelle, France’s extravaganza celebration of the centennial of the Revolution – for which the Eiffel Tower was designed. He exhibited 19 paintings at the Exposition and became the first artist to be awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour.

Unflagging in his commitment to the arts, he also helped to establish the independent Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts the following year, and became its first president for a brief period prior to his death in 1891.

* Primary Source: The Louvre

In my next blog I will move on to discuss Impressionism and some of the key artists and artworks from that period.

This is an excerpt from my e-course, Introduction to Modern European Art.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Young Girl Reading c1868

Young Girl Reading by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot is, I think, a beautiful example of a Realist painting from the 1800s.

Until the end of the 19th century the term Realism meant observing the world in its natural form. It was a representation of the external world as it was actually seen and experienced.

The Realists were responding to the political and social upheaval in Europe in the early part of the century. They rejected what they perceived to be the artificiality of both Classicism and Romanticism. Instead they presented a non-escapist, democratic and empirical view of life as it existed around them, far removed from the heroic and idealised paintings such as Liberty Leading the People by Eugéne Delacroix.

They painted ordinary people leading their everyday lives, conscientiously reproducing what had been largely ignored aspects of contemporary life and society. In particular they focused on the physical settings, material circumstance and living conditions of the middle and lower classes, which until this time were not seen as worthy subjects for academic art. Landscapes were also popular subjects.

The natural world was seen as a place of worship by poets and artists alike. However, realist pictures of working men and women going about their business could be distinctly ordinary. Many viewers criticised such pictures as lacking in poetry and imagination, while other critics applauded them as having a more democratic form of art in keeping with the times.

Although realistic paintings were not characterised by a single style, they were often infused with a robustness and energy conveyed through bold lines, strong tonal contrasts, broad handling of paint and a sombre palette.

Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, for example, was interested in faithfully reproducing heroic scenes, such as major battles, in minute detail. He also had a particular interest in both the 17th and 18th Centuries, so many of his genre paintings were of people from that time.

Gustave Courbet, on the other hand, was as an avant-garde painter, who wanted to represent ordinary people living ordinary lives, without the sense of the heroic or of romanticism. As might be expected, this approach led to a great deal of criticism, as it was not considered ‘high art’.

Jean François Millet also sought to represent rural life and rural workers, but can be viewed as making more of a political or social comment about the injustice towards the poor at the time.

Although Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot painted a number of portraits, he is largely remembered for his landscapes. He was particularly influenced by the realist Barbizon School in France which had a strong focus on tonal qualities, colour, loose brushwork, and softness of form. His style influenced the Impressionists who followed.

In my next few blogs I will discuss works by each of these artists.

This blog is just a short excerpt from my art history e-course, Introduction to Modern European Art which is designed for adult learners and students of art history.

This interactive program covers the period from Romanticism right through to Abstract Art, with sections on the Bauhaus and School of Paris, key Paris exhibitions, both favourite and less well known artists and their work, and information about colour theory and key art terms. Lots of interesting stories, videos and opportunities to undertake exercises throughout the program.

If you’d like to see some of the Australian artwork you’ll find in my gallery, scroll down to the bottom of the page. You’ll also find many French works on paper and beautiful fashion plates from the early 1900s by visiting the gallery.