François-Joseph Bélanger
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| - | '''Hubert Robert''' (22 May 1733 – 15 April 1808), [[French artist]], was born in Paris. | + | '''François-Joseph Bélanger''' (12 April 1744 – 1 May 1818) was a French architect and decorator working in the [[Neoclassicism|Neoclassic style]]. |
| - | His father, Nicolas Robert, was in the service of François-Joseph de Choiseul, marquis de Stainville. Young Robert finished his studies with the Jesuits at the [[Collège de Navarre]] in 1751 and entered the atelier of the sculptor [[Slodtz|Michel-Ange Slodtz]] who taught him design and perspective but encouraged him to turn to painting. In 1754 he left for Rome in the train of [[Étienne François, duc de Choiseul|Étienne-François de Choiseul]], son of his father's employer, who had been named French ambassador and would become a Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to Louis XV in 1758. | + | Born in [[Paris]], he studied at the [[Académie Royale d'Architecture]] (1764–1766) where he worked under [[Julien-David Le Roy]] and [[Pierre Contant d'Ivry]], but did not win the coveted [[Prix de Rome]] that would have sent him to study at Rome; however, through Le Roy's circle he was introduced to some advanced neoclassical designers, such as [[Charles-Louis Clérisseau]], [[Robert Adam]]'s drawing-master, recently arrived from Rome, and was admitted to the Académie at the age of twenty. He began his career in 1767 working at the Menus Plaisirs du Roi designing ephemeral decorations for court fêtes, and by 1777 he was its director. In this position, he was in charge of the funeral preparations for [[Louis XV of France|Louis XV]] and the coronation coach of [[Louis XVI of France|Louis XVI]]. The jewel cabinet he designed for the wedding of the Dauphin to Marie-Antoinette has not survived, but a drawing of it exists, and, most remarkably, the ''maquette'' presented for approval of the design, made of wax and painted paper on a wooden frame, (now at the [[Walters Art Gallery]], Baltimore), which shows that it was very advanced for its date (designed in time to be delivered 4 May 1770), in a fully-developed Neoclassical taste, with caryatid demi-figures and framed medallions in blue and white |
| - | ==Years in Rome== | + | Ten years later he purchased the position of chief architect to [[Louis XVIII of France|Monsieur, the comte d'Artois]], brother of Louis XVI. For him Bélanger designed and constructed the [[Pavilion (structure)|party pavilion]] [[Château de Bagatelle]] in the [[Bois de Boulogne]], 1777, winning his patron's bet with the Queen by completing the house in sixty-three days (and nights) and introducing décors in the ''style Étrusque''. Bélanger constructed the [[Folie Saint James]], a [[French landscape garden]], in [[Neuilly]] from 1777 to 1780, and worked for the comte d'Artois at the [[Château of Maisons-Lafitte]]. During the [[French Revolution|Revolution]] he spent some time in the prison of Saint-Lazare. |
| - | He spent fully eleven years in Rome, a remarkable length of time; after the young artist's official residence at the [[French Academy in Rome]] ran out, he supported himself by works he produced for visiting connoisseurs like the [[Jean-Claude Richard|abbé de Saint-Non]], who took Robert to Naples in April 1760 to visit the ruins of [[Pompeii]]. The [[marquis de Marigny]], director of the ''[[Bâtiments du Roi]]'' kept abreast of his development in correspondence with [[Natoire]], director of the French Academy, who urged the ''pensionnaires'' to sketch out-of-doors, from nature: Robert needed no urging; drawings from his sketchbooks document his travels: [[Villa d'Este]], [[Caprarola]]. Robert spent his time in the company of young artists in the circle of [[Giovanni Battista Piranesi|Piranesi]], whose ''[[capriccio|capricci]]'' of romantically overgrown ruins influenced him so greatly that he gained the nickname ''Robert des ruines''. The albums of sketches and drawings he assembled in Rome supplied him with motifs that he worked into paintings throughout his career. | + | |
| - | ==In Paris== | + | |
| - | His success on his return to Paris in 1765 was rapid: the following year he was received by the [[Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture]], with a Roman capriccio, ''The Port of Rome, ornamented with different Monuments of Architecture, Ancient and Modern.'' Robert's first exhibition at the [[Paris Salon|Salon of 1767]] was greeted in print by [[Denis Diderot]], "The ideas which the ruins awake in me are grand." He was successively appointed "Designer of the King's Gardens", Keeper of the King's Pictures" and "Keeper of the Museum and Councilor to the Academy". | + | |
| - | ==The Revolution== | + | |
| - | During the Revolution, he was arrested in October 1793. He survived his detentions at Sainte-Pélagie and Saint-Lazare, by painting vignettes of prison life on plates, before he was freed at the fall of Robespierre. Robert narrowly escaped the [[guillotine]] when through error another prisoner died in his place. | + | |
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| - | Subsequently he was placed on the committee of five in charge of the new national museum at the [[Palais du Louvre]]. | + | |
| - | ==Robert and picturesque gardens== | + | In 1813, at the death of [[Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart]] he presented himself successfully as candidate for completing the [[Bourse]]. From 1808 to 1813 he rebuilt the cupola of the ''Halle au blé'', the former grain market that is the present ''Bourse de commerce'' of Paris. This was among the earliest uses of iron to enclose a long-span interior space. |
| - | Enterprising and prolific, Robert also acted in a role similar to that of a modern day art director, conceptualizing fashionably dilapidated gardens for several aristocratic clients, summarized by his possible intervention at [[Ermenonville]]; there he would have been working with the architect [[Morel]] for the marquis de Girardin, who was the author of ''Compositions des paysages'' (1777) and had distinct views of his own. In 1786 he began his better documented collaboration at [[Château de Méréville|Méréville]], with his most significant patron, the financier Jean-Joseph de Laborde, who found [[François-Joseph Bélanger]]'s plans too expensive and perhaps too formal. Though documents are again lacking, Hubert Robert's name is invariably invoked in connection with [[Marie Antoinette]]'s 'premier architecte' [[Richard Mique]] through several phases of the creation of an informal landscape garden at the [[Petit Trianon]], and the setting of the "''[[petit hameau]]''. Robert's contribution to garden design was not in making practical ground plans for improvements but in providing atmospheric inspiration for the proposed effect. At Ermenonville and at Méréville "Hubert Robert's paintings both recorded and inspired", according to W.H. Adams: Robert's four large ruin fantasies, painted in 1787 for Méréville may be searched in vain for direct connections with the garden. Hubert's paintings of the Moulin Joly of his friend [[Claude-Henri Watelet]] render the fully-grown atmosphere of a garden that had been under way since 1754. His set of six Italianate landscape panels painted for Bagatelle were not the inspiration for the formal turfed paterre set in the thinned woodlands, designed by Bélanger; the later picturesque extensions of Bagatelle were carried out by its Scottish gardener, William Blaikie. Robert's commissioned painting of the long-delayed rejuvenation of the park at [[Palace of Versailles|Versailles]], begun in 1774 with the cutting down of the trees for sale as firewood, is a record of the event, resonant with allegorical meaning. Robert was more certainly responsible for the conception of the grotto and cascades of the 'Baths of Apollo,' tucked within a grove of the chateau's park and built to house [[François Girardon]]'s celebrated sculpture group ''Apollo Attended by Nymphs''. | + | |
| - | He deserves to be remembered not so much for his skill as a painter, but as for the liveliness and point with which he treated the subjects he painted. The contrast between the ruins of [[ancient Rome]] and the life of his time excited his keenest interest. The reputation he acquired in Rome, working for a time in the studio of [[Giovanni Paolo Pannini|Pannini]], whose influence can be seen in the ''Vue imaginaire de la galerie du Louvre en ruine'' (''illustration''). | + | Bélanger designed and constructed numerous [[Hôtel particulier|hôtels particuliers]] for Parisian aristocrats and bankers. He designed the Château de Méréville for [[Jean-Joseph de Laborde]], 1784–86 He designed interiors for the Hôtel Baudart de Saint-James, 12 [[Place Vendôme]], and influenced garden designs of the epoch. |
| - | Along with this incessant activity as an artist, his daring character and many adventures attracted general admiration and sympathy. In the fourth canto of his ''L'Imagination'' [[Jacques Delille]] celebrated Robert's miraculous escape when lost in the catacombs. | + | He supervised the workshop supported by the connoisseur Louis-Marie-Augustin, duc d'Aumont, that produced hardstone and porphyry vases, pedestals, and tabletops, which were mounted with gilt-bronze ornaments to his designs. The late duc d'Aumont's collection was dispersed at auction, 1782: among the purchasers was the Queen. |
| - | The quantity of his work is immense; the [[Louvre]] alone contains nine paintings by his hand and specimens are frequently to be met with in provincial museums and private collections. Robert's work has more or less of that scenic character which justified his selection by [[Voltaire]] to paint the decorations of his theatre at Ferney. Robert died of a stroke on 15 April 1808. | + | He died at Paris in 1818. Among the architects trained in his atelier was Joseph Ramee. |
| - | His work was much engraved by the [[Jean-Claude Richard|abbé de Saint-Non]], with whom he had visited [[Naples]] in the company of [[Jean-Honoré Fragonard|Fragonard]] during his early days; in Italy his work has also been frequently reproduced by Chatelain, Linard, [[Le Veau]], and others. | + | ==Notes== |
| + | {{reflist}} | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==References== | ||
| + | *F.J.B. Watson, ''Louis XVI Furniture'' 1960. | ||
| + | *Jean Stern, ''A l'ombre de Sophie Arnould. François-Joseph Belanger, architecte des Menus Plaisirs, premier architecte du comte d'Artois.'' (Paris: Plon) 1930 | ||
| + | *Gabrielle Joudiou, ''La folie de M. de Sainte-James : une demeure, un jardin pittoresque'' (Neuilly-sur-Seine : Editions Spiralinthe) 2001 | ||
| + | *Martine Constans and Béatrice de Andia, ''Bagatelle dans ses jardins'' (Paris) 1997 ISBN 2-905118-91-1 | ||
| + | *[http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=6273 Getty Museum: Pair of gilt-bronze wall-lights attributed to Bélanger], executed by [[Pierre Gouthière]] | ||
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Revision as of 20:22, 5 October 2010
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François-Joseph Bélanger (12 April 1744 – 1 May 1818) was a French architect and decorator working in the Neoclassic style.
Born in Paris, he studied at the Académie Royale d'Architecture (1764–1766) where he worked under Julien-David Le Roy and Pierre Contant d'Ivry, but did not win the coveted Prix de Rome that would have sent him to study at Rome; however, through Le Roy's circle he was introduced to some advanced neoclassical designers, such as Charles-Louis Clérisseau, Robert Adam's drawing-master, recently arrived from Rome, and was admitted to the Académie at the age of twenty. He began his career in 1767 working at the Menus Plaisirs du Roi designing ephemeral decorations for court fêtes, and by 1777 he was its director. In this position, he was in charge of the funeral preparations for Louis XV and the coronation coach of Louis XVI. The jewel cabinet he designed for the wedding of the Dauphin to Marie-Antoinette has not survived, but a drawing of it exists, and, most remarkably, the maquette presented for approval of the design, made of wax and painted paper on a wooden frame, (now at the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore), which shows that it was very advanced for its date (designed in time to be delivered 4 May 1770), in a fully-developed Neoclassical taste, with caryatid demi-figures and framed medallions in blue and white
Ten years later he purchased the position of chief architect to Monsieur, the comte d'Artois, brother of Louis XVI. For him Bélanger designed and constructed the party pavilion Château de Bagatelle in the Bois de Boulogne, 1777, winning his patron's bet with the Queen by completing the house in sixty-three days (and nights) and introducing décors in the style Étrusque. Bélanger constructed the Folie Saint James, a French landscape garden, in Neuilly from 1777 to 1780, and worked for the comte d'Artois at the Château of Maisons-Lafitte. During the Revolution he spent some time in the prison of Saint-Lazare.
In 1813, at the death of Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart he presented himself successfully as candidate for completing the Bourse. From 1808 to 1813 he rebuilt the cupola of the Halle au blé, the former grain market that is the present Bourse de commerce of Paris. This was among the earliest uses of iron to enclose a long-span interior space.
Bélanger designed and constructed numerous hôtels particuliers for Parisian aristocrats and bankers. He designed the Château de Méréville for Jean-Joseph de Laborde, 1784–86 He designed interiors for the Hôtel Baudart de Saint-James, 12 Place Vendôme, and influenced garden designs of the epoch.
He supervised the workshop supported by the connoisseur Louis-Marie-Augustin, duc d'Aumont, that produced hardstone and porphyry vases, pedestals, and tabletops, which were mounted with gilt-bronze ornaments to his designs. The late duc d'Aumont's collection was dispersed at auction, 1782: among the purchasers was the Queen.
He died at Paris in 1818. Among the architects trained in his atelier was Joseph Ramee.
Notes
References
- F.J.B. Watson, Louis XVI Furniture 1960.
- Jean Stern, A l'ombre de Sophie Arnould. François-Joseph Belanger, architecte des Menus Plaisirs, premier architecte du comte d'Artois. (Paris: Plon) 1930
- Gabrielle Joudiou, La folie de M. de Sainte-James : une demeure, un jardin pittoresque (Neuilly-sur-Seine : Editions Spiralinthe) 2001
- Martine Constans and Béatrice de Andia, Bagatelle dans ses jardins (Paris) 1997 ISBN 2-905118-91-1
- Getty Museum: Pair of gilt-bronze wall-lights attributed to Bélanger, executed by Pierre Gouthière
