On 12th June 1805, following his coronation in Milan, Napoleon I declared his desire to “Frenchise Italy”. Combining the legacy of the Revolution and authoritarian despotism, his policy also had an impact on this side of the Alps. Due to the high level of importance attributed to the arts, there has been an extraordinary meeting of the different trends that make up European modernity in the season of neoclassicism, perpetuated by the Masters Jacques Louis David (1748-1825), Antonio Canova (1757-1822) and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867).
Jean Auguste Dominque Ingres and the artistic life at the time of Napoleon – held at the Palazzo Reale in Milan from 12th March to 23rd June 2019 – presents an artist who was greatly influenced by the great Raphael and, at the same time, seeks to reinstate the innovation inherent to the artistic life at the turn of the nineteenth century, with a particular focus on Milan that played a fundamental role in political and artistic reorganisation. In this exhibition, the painter of the odalisques also unveils his Italianness, a trait that makes him a fundamental figure in artistic life before, during and after the Empire. To document the great stylistic and thematic variety of the new classicism, the exhibition takes visitors on a journey through the various sections. The first part highlights the invention of the new figurative language between the Ancien Regime and the French Revolution in which David is the protagonist together with his closest pupils, including Ingres himself, with a lexicon composed of virile bodies and immense energy. However, the homo novus that these paintings intend to represent is also expressed through the evolution of the portrait.
The mere term “neoclassicism” does not do justice to what has been a profound revolution in taste. The definition emerged during the Romantic era with a pejorative connotation, to stigmatise an algid, sculpted style and a banal return to the ancient arts. In fact it took more than a century for neoclassicism to find an original physiognomy, in the context of a revaluation that continues today. The exhibition wants to show that the alleged classicism of Ingres is actually an illusion, revealing the colourist behind the draughtsmanship and presenting his religious paintings alongside troubadour scenes in close proximity to nubile women with long necks and ample hips.
His path is singular and surprising. Considered as unclassifiable, perceived as the heir of Raphael and at the same time as the precursor of Picasso, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres is first and foremost a revolutionary. Realist and mannerist at the same time, he enthrals as much with expressive exaggeration as he does with his preference for the truth.
by Caterina Gigli