François-André Vincent

Bio

Although Vincent earned the praise and esteem of his contemporaries, few of his major works are known to the public today and, indeed, both paintings and drawings have been misattributed to artists as diverse as Velazquez, Largillière, Subleyras, Delacroix and Gericault. Nonetheless, the transformation of his painting style from bold rococo to a refined neoclassicism, coupled with the broad range of his subject matter, demonstrates an openness of mind and technical ability unmatched by his contemporaries.

Recent studies by Jean-Pierre Cuzin have revealed an artist of extraordinary talent, able to treat arcane neoclassical subjects and explore the new fashion for stories from French history, while giving a dignity and pathos to his portrayals of ordinary life that raises them to the highest level. Thus, among his entries at the Salons of the 1790s, one could have seen not only the large Zeuxis (Paris, Louvre, fig. ), but three other contrasting masterpieces, the Pyrrhus and Glaucus (Zilokovice, Czech Republic), William Tell pushing back the Barge of Governor Guesler (Toulouse, Musée des Augustins), and his great tribute to French pastoral life, Agriculture (Bordeaux, Musée des Beaux Arts).

While, like David, he also pursued a career as a successful and fashionable portraitist, he did not share the latter’s political ambitions, although it is clear that he must have been sympathetic to some aspects of the Revolution. Nonetheless, David clearly perceived him as a possible rival, writing of him in 1793 that he ‘has talent, but his patriotism is without colour’. Three years later David complained that Vincent’s pupils had all been given accommodation at the expense of the state, while twenty-six of his were without rooms – ignoring the vast disparity in the size of their respective studios. Vincent had played a leading role in the affairs of the Academy (to which he had been elected a full member in 1783) and, after unsuccessfully seeking the post of Director of the Rome Academy (which went to Suvée), held a number of important positions within the new artistic administration. It was certainly in recognition of his artistic talents rather than his political skills that he was one of the first six painters to be appointed to the new Institut de France.

Having been awarded the Prix de Rome in 1768 at the age of twenty-two with a Germanicus, he spent the years 1771-75 in Italy, where he produced a series of witty and revealing portraits of his fellow pensionnaires as well as genre scenes, landscapes and many drawings. Although one might have expected him to have adopted his master Vien’s cold and static neoclassicism, the greater influence on Vincent at this time was Fragonard, who made his second trip to Italy while the younger painter was resident at the French Academy. Vincent shared with the latter artist a love of colour and a vigorous, animated style, and we may assume that they struck up a friendship since they journeyed to Naples together with Fragonard’s patron, Bergeret, in 1774 (when he must have painted Bergeret’s splendid portrait, Salon of 1777, now in Besancon). Several times both artists treated the same subjects, notably The Dwarf Bajaccio (Copenhagen, Statens Museum fur Kunst), who was also portrayed in conversation with a young woman in a splendid wash drawing by Fragonard now in Frankfurt. Vincent’s bold and colourful Neapolitan Woman (United States, Private Collection), may perhaps be identified with Fragonard’s A Woman from Santa Lucia, also in Frankfurt. Several other works by Vincent from this period were formerly misattributed to Fragonard, including a Self Portrait (Grasse, Musée Fragonard), a Landscape at Tivoli (Marseille, Musée Borely), and Hermine and the Shepherds (Amiens, Musée des Beaux Arts), as well as numerous drawings.

In the first Salon in which he participated, that of 1777, the most important of his fifteen offerings were a large Saint Jerome, an Alicibiades Receiving the Lessons of Socrates and its pendant, Belisarius reduced to begging (all three in Montpellier, Musée Fabre), this last a subject also painted by Peyron (1779) and David (1781). In reducing the scene to three principal figures, with three soldiers in the background, Vincent proves his mastery of this powerful and emotive subject, concentrating the attention on the tragic figure of the ill-used General, the boy who was his only support and the soldier who once served with him. In this he anticipates the even simpler composition of David although, unlike the latter, he virtually ignores the architectural setting and one can detect the influence of Greuze in the figure of the boy. The picture was enthusiastically received by the critics, one commenting that the ‘young Vincent has fulfilled my expectations. He will became, quite definitely, a very great painter’ and while some remarked negatively on the froideur, they had not yet appreciated that here Vincent was in the vanguard of a new approach to classical subject matter. His painting may be favourably contrasted with Peyron’s over populated image, whose focus is diffused with the General placed at the extreme edge of a group of eight major figures, each given equal prominence before a broken wall.

The most innovative subjects exhibited in 1777 were the entries of two older painters, Brenet and Durameau, who were the first to follow d’Angiviller’s injunction to choose subjects from national history. There can be little doubt that their reception must have inspired Vincent’s initial attempt at such a subject, his Président Molé (Paris, Palais Bourbon), with which he obtained his first great public success. The dramatic story of a leading Magistrate attacked by an enraged citizenry is presented with an immediacy that neither Brenet nor Durameau had achieved with their grand, but somewhat static compositions. Vincent had already produced two important pictures illustrating the Life of La Galaizière (Nancy, Musée des Beaux Arts) which were not exhibited, but coupled with the popular reception of his Président Molé, his reputation as an interpreter of French history must have assisted in obtaining the commission to paint a series illustrating the Life of Henri IV (Fontainebleau and Paris, Louvre), to be used as cartoons for tapestries destined as a gift to the Czarevitch, the Grand Duke Paul, who had visited France in 1782. Two more subjects were added to this series in 1787 and he produced two later versions of Henri IV with the Wounded Sully, exhibited at the 1785 and 1787 Salons.

The rapid change in painting style during the 1780s is well exemplified by a comparison of David’s portrait of Count Potocki (Warsaw, National Museum) of 1781 and Vincent’s Orythia (Chambery, Prefecture de Savoie) of the next year, which both retain a residue of rococo grandeur, with their entries at the 1789 Salon, the Brutus (Paris, Louvre, fig. ) of David and the large Zeuxis of Vincent. All traces of their earlier manner have been completely eliminated in the latter paintings and replaced with the purest neoclassical line, although Vincent eschewed the cold Republican passions of David and maintained the high colour of his earlier works. However, while Vincent embraced the neoclassical style wholeheartedly when painting subjects from Greek or Roman history, in stark contrast to David he developed at the same time a bold romanticism which he employed for subjects appropriate to such a manner, notably the William Tell (Toulouse, Musée des Augustins) of 1795.

The comparison made here between the works of Vincent and David is particularly apposite, not simply because they were born within two years of each other and enjoyed parallel pre-revolutionary careers, but also because this same comparison seems to have been made by their contemporaries. Indeed, the Comte d’Artois (future King Charles X of France), in 1787 commissioned them to paint two otherwise unconnected stories, the Loves of Paris and Helen (from David, completed in 1788, Paris, Louvre) and Rinaldo and Armida (from Vincent, exhibited at the Salon of 1787, and now lost), as pendants. While David’s popular following and public reputation were greater, not all the critics were convinced of his superiority as an artist. Although David’s mastery of his powerful subjects were unequaled by any of those other painters who dared to challenge him in this arena, the failure of Peyron’s Socrates (Copenhagen, Staten Museum fur Kunst) being a good example, Thomas Crow has pointed out that he was an expert at manipulating the Salon audience which enjoyed the theatre of a schism in the ranks of the Academy. Quoting from one of the critics who commented that ‘M. Peyron arranges a scene better, puts more depth into it, and distributes his light with more intelligence and effect. M. Regnault draws better and uses colour more truthfully. M. Vincent paints with a bold vigour that leaves his fortunate competitor far behind.’, Crow observes that this was cold comfort for these three artists for whom their art was more important than a popular following and who had no desire to challenge the hegemony of the authorities of the Academy and artistic establishment.