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Fig. 1
he was to spend the next four years at the Académie sign his pictures Renaud de Rome, to disassociate him-
de France in the company of Jacques-Louis David self from the mannered taste of French painting
and Jean-François-Pierre Peyron. Having noticed before the time of David.2
how Peyron had developed his style based on Poussin
and that David had given himself over to In 1783 Regnault returned to France and threw him-
Caravaggesque realism, Regnault was initially self at the task of painting for his morceau d’agrément
inclined towards pursuing a Late Baroque style, as a canvas of Perseus delivers Andromeda and returns her to
seen in his Baptism of Christ (untraced; but recorded her parents (destroyed; reduced version, Saint
in two sketches and an etching), and PerseusWashing Petersburg, Hermitage) and for his morceau de récep-
his Hands (1779; Louisville, KY, Speed Art Mus.). His tion, the Education of Achilles (Paris, Louvre).
style later progressed towards the static Neo-classi- Accepted for exhibition at the 1783 Salon, these two
cism of Anton Raphael Mengs. Until 1787 he would pictures established Regnault as a key player in the
2. C. Sells, ‘Jean-Baptiste Regnault’, in the Grove Dictionary of Art, entry by Christopher Sells,
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