Rigaud, HyacintheHarold Osborne / Marc Jordan
(1659–1743).
French portrait painter, the rival of Largillierre and the outstanding court portraitist at the end of Louis XIV's reign. He was born in Perpignan and trained in Montpellier and Lyons. He arrived in Paris in 1681 and by 1688 had gained an influential clientele at court. Using patterns derived from van Dyck (and ultimately from Titian) he developed a style of sumptuous dignity that remained the norm for formal portraiture up until the Revolution and which was revived for royal images at
the Bourbon Restoration. His most famous work of this kind is the full-length
state portrait of the elderly Louis XIV (1701; Paris, Louvre). To modern eyes
this throughly Baroque image, so cruelly mocked in a caricature by Thackeray, epitomizes all that is most false in a tradition that places the symbols of rank above the personality of the individual. Nevertheless, within the bounds of decorum, Rigaud had a good eye for character, as is clear from one of his most spectacular portraits,
Cardinal de Bouillon (1709; Perpignan, Mus. Rigaud). Like his contemporary the
sculptor Coysevox, Rigaud also made alongside his official portraits a number of intimate studies of friends and family, which have a Rembrandtesque truthfulness about them. They include the double portrait Marie Serre, the Artist's Mother (1695; Paris, Louvre), which was, in fact, made for a bust by Coysevox.
Osborne, Harold and Marc Jordan . "Rigaud, Hyacinthe." The Oxford Companion to Western Art. Ed. Hugh Brigstocke. Oxford Art Online. 5 Mar. 2011
Misty,
ReplyDeletethat does indeed look like a useful article. And I also want to commend you on doing a thorough job of commenting on other students' projects.
Now, I want to push you, once more, to pull together and post, asap, a working bibliography, fully annotated, of all your sources so far, with the current version of your thesis question and an explanation of your goals.
Misty,
ReplyDeleteas I remember this painting, the fleurs de lis are on a beautiful cape? I have written about the king's legs in the painting, comparing them to the legs of Brigit Bardot in a famous photo. But you're interested in the symbol of royal power, and it sounds like this article will get you moving in that direction.
Time now, as Mark says, to gather speed, to collect more widely, to state your purpose more clearly.
Curiousity + discipline.
Hey Misty, I think it's great that you aren't limiting yourself to simple images of the fleur de lis but are instead exploring the fleur de lis in context and through various historical vantage points. Perhaps in your thesis you can have a separate section for each context which the fleur de lis enters, such as art, fashion, history, politics etc. I am not sure how you are planning to organize your work but this could be a possibility.
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