In a fortnight’s time, on 28 September, we celebrate the bicentenary of the major French narrative artist and great teacher Alexandre Cabanel (1823–1889). In this, the first of three articles about his career and importance, I look at his life and a selection of his paintings before 1870.
Cabanel was born in Montpellier, a city just inland from the Mediterranean coast of France, to the west of Marseille, on 28 September 1823. He moved to Paris to study at the École des Beaux-Arts when he was just seventeen, and was taught there by François-Édouard Picot (1786-1868), a prominent realist painter of narrative who also taught William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Émile Lévy, and Gustave Moreau.
Cabanel showed early signs of great promise: he first exhibited at the Salon in 1844, at the age of twenty, and came close to winning the Prix de Rome the following year.
Clik here to view.
He’s believed to have painted Paul the First Hermit with Lions in the years 1841-45. This refers not to the best-known Saint Paul from the New Testament, but to Saint Paul of Thebes, who’s thought to have lived between about 227-341 CE, in and around Thebes in Egypt. He fled to the Theban desert and lived there as a hermit. It’s claimed by Jerome that Anthony the Great went to seek Paul out in 342 CE, but on a return visit the hermit was dead. Anthony then buried him with the aid of two passing lions, who dug the grave as shown here.
Clik here to view.
Painted while still a student, Cabanel’s Cincinnatus Receiving the Deputies of the Senate is a more accurate reflection of his precocious skill. He shows in quite neo-Classical style what was a popular episode from Roman history.
In 458 BCE, the Aequi living to the east of Rome tried to take the Roman town of Tusculum. When Rome responded, one of its two armies was quickly pinned down and besieged by the Aequi, and its second army was unable to help. The Senate panicked, and decided to appoint Cincinnatus as dictator. Deputies were sent out to tell him of his appointment, and found him ploughing on his farm outside the city of Rome. Cabanel shows the Senate’s deputies asking Cincinnatus to don his toga and return with them to take over command of Rome and its beleaguered armies.
This work is claimed to date from 1843, which I suspect may be an error: it has the same title and theme as Léon Bénouville’s winning entry in the Prix de Rome in 1845, when Cabanel had to accept second place, probably with this painting. Bénouville was a fellow student in Picot’s atelier at the time, but didn’t go on to attain the same fame as Cabanel.
Clik here to view.
Cabanel’s slightly later painting of The Mocking of Christ (1845) is in contrastingly dark style, more akin to a religious work from the previous century.
Clik here to view.
Cabanel’s portrait of Alfred Bruyas, from 1846, shows his first patron, a prolific collector who was later to be one of Gustave Courbet’s patrons, also appearing in Courbet’s The Meeting (1854).
Clik here to view.
The Death of Moses (1850) tackles one of the vaguer episodes in the life of this prophet of the Old Testament. When he was 120 years old, according to the book of Numbers, Moses assembled the tribes of Israel on the banks of the River Jordan, reminded them of the laws under which they must live, sang a song of praise, blessed the people, and passed his authority to Joshua. He then ascended Mount Nebo, looked over the Promised Land, and died. Cabanel shows this as a near-apotheosis, with God the Father (upper left) welcoming Moses (centre right) with open arms.
Clik here to view.
He painted this Self-portrait in 1852.
Clik here to view.
It was Cabanel’s The Birth of Venus that brought his greatest success at the Salon. An unashamedly romantic-academic depiction of this well-known myth, this painting stole the Salon of 1863 with its socially presentable eroticism, and was bought by Napoleon III for his personal collection. In 1864, Cabanel was appointed a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he taught for the next twenty-five years, until his death.
Clik here to view.
His life-sized full-length portrait of the Emperor Napoleon III from about 1865 wasn’t uncontroversial, though, as many felt that his image of their emperor should have greater grandeur. Some critics even accused Cabanel of making him look like a hotel manager or waiter, and I can see their point. The Empress Eugenie and Napoleon’s family had no such qualms: Cabanel’s painting was hung in the Tuileries Palace, and when the Second Empire collapsed, and the empress fled to Britain, she took this painting with her into exile.
Clik here to view.
Cabanel’s Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Paradise (1867) is based on John Milton’s account in Paradise Lost. Although less known that William Blake’s earlier illustrations, it’s a comprehensive account, with the figure of Satan skulking among the foliage in the foreground, and the serpent under his left foot.
Next week I’ll resume my account in 1870.