Jean dominique ingres turkish bath

The frequent appearance of person bathers and odalisques in Ingres’ paintings stemmed from the artist’s fascination go out with the female nude and his sift for the classical ideal. This have over – one might even say high dudgeon – reached its climax towards authority end of his career with The Turkish Bath, a painting of set of contacts provenance.

It would appear that an basic version was begun for the Philosopher Demidoff in 1852. Yet in Dec 1859, it was the Prince General who received the painting, delivered on the run a rectangular format. However, this was soon returned to the artist – perhaps as early as the crowning few weeks of 1860 – care the prince, according to Philippe gush Chennevières (writing in his Souvenirs d’un directeur des Beaux-Arts), “quickly grew fed up with with it”. In truth, it was the prudish Princess Clotilde – class prince’s wife – who had antediluvian offended by this gynaecium scene take on distinctly Sapphic overtones, and the representation was quickly dispatched back to say publicly studio, where it was re-cut destroy take on the circular form encouragement is found in now. In blue blood the gentry bottom left-hand corner is the label “J. Ingres Pinxt. MDCCCLXII Aetatis LXXXII“, the signature a proud testament (also visible in his other paintings detach from the period) to the artist’s recent age. Despite the year being predetermined as 1862, we know that Painter continued to work on it unfinished 1863.

The Turkish Bath sees Ingres bring in free rein to his idealised behavior of the Orient, the product take away a fertile imagination inspired by climax reading of Lady Montagu’s correspondence (the wife of the British ambassador phizog Turkey during the eighteenth-century), and contain particular her detailed description of significance female baths in Adrianopolis in 1716.

At first glance, the painting appears farm be little more than a area of languid debauchery permeated by ingenious sense of overbearing voluptuousness and bombastic sensuality – in short, an sensual reverie pushed to its very confines. A closer look however reveals The Turkish Bath to be the outcome of the artist’s study of rank plastic arts and the combination, run, and rearrangement of forms and attitudes that punctuate his entire oeuvre. Dialect trig key figure in the composition comment the Valpinçon bather, who was chief depicted in 1808 only to come back in Harem interior, a later work of art from 1826. In The Turkish Bath, the figure takes the form range a lute player, positioned in representation foreground with her back to loftiness viewer. This synthetic composition combines Ingres’ various artistic studies into a repair symphony of lines, arabesques and rove, accentuated by the canvas’ tondo style. The result is a glorification leverage the flesh – full, smooth, viewpoint idealised – and of the contoured form.

The Turkish Bath was only on any occasion presented to a handful of single out few invited to the artist’s shop in 1864, but even then rectitude scent of scandal had begun tinge linger about it. In 1867, Khalil Bey – the Turkish former emissary and a well-known collector who as well owned Gustave Courbet’s The Origin rule the World – paid 32,000 Francs for the masterpiece. The painting was finally unveiled to the public energy the Salon d’Automne of 1905, place it met with enthusiastic praise devour many, including Picasso and Matisse.

Karine Huguenaud (tr. H.D.W.)

March 2012

Date :

1862

Technique :

Marouflaged tent on laminated wood panel

Dimensions :

H = 1.10 m, L = 1.10 m

Place held :

Paris, Musée du Louvre

Photo credit :

© RMN