Sara Hassan
Professor Sharpe
ARH 104-02
December 5, 2018
Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Le Brun
According to Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Le Brun herself, she painted 900 pictures, including approximately 600 portraits and around 200 landscapes over the course of her career. Lebrun is a French painter famous for her portraits of women. Some of her most well-known portraits are those of Marie-Antoinette. Her rise to fame and innovative artistic technique makes her one of the most successful women artists of the 18th century. Not only did she play a key role in revolutionizing 18th century art, but she paved the way for future women artists to get the recognition they deserve.
Marie-Louise-Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun was born on April 16, 1755 in Paris, France.
She was inspired and trained to become an artist through father, Louis Vigée. Louis Vigée was a prominent portraitist who worked primarily in the medium of pastels. After her father's death, Lebrun took drawing lessons and visited art galleries. It was recommended to her that she study the works of Italian and Flemish artists and nature. However, similar to her father, Lebrun mainly focused on portraits, with a concentration on the Rococo artistic style. She was admitted to the Academy of Saint-Luc at nineteen-years-old and exhibited her work there, the first time in 1774. After the Academy of Saint-Luc she exhibited her paintings at the Salon de la Correspondance. In 1776, Lebrun married J.-B.-P. Lebrun, an art dealer. Her husband’s access to art introduced her to a new realm of artists that helped expand her knowledge and technique. By 1779, Lebrun’s talent captured the attention of the queen of France and she was invited to Versailles to paint a portrait of Marie-Antoinette. Marie-Antoinette became very fond of Lebrun’s work and in 1783, the queen selected her to become a member of Paris’s Royal Academy ((Montfort)). The two became close friends and over the years, Marie-Antoinette commissioned Lebrun to paint over twenty portraits of her in an array of poses and costumes. Her close relationship with the royal family and her position as one of only four female academicians, allowed her to hold a high profile. However, her status grew too high, as she was forced to flee France with her nine-year-old daughter at the rise of the French Revolution (May, 38). She lived abroad for over twelve years and traveled to Rome, Naples, Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Moscow, painting portraits and playing a leading role in society. She returned to Paris in 1801, but quickly left London, due to her dislike for the Parisian social life under Napoleon. She continued to paint portraits, such as those of the court and of Lord Byron in London, and later of Mme de Staël in Switzerland. Finally, she went back to reside in Paris where she continued to paint until her death on March 30, 1842 (“Élisabeth Louise Vigée-LeBrun”).
Since 1779, Lebrun had been working closely with Marie-Antoinette, painting several portraits of the queen posing alone in various extravagant gowns. However, in September 1785, Lebrun was summoned once again to come to Versailles. During this time, Marie-Antoinette’s popularity with the civilians of France was on a rapid decline and she needed some way to change the country’s perception of her. The solution was a portrait by Lebrun, titled Marie Antoinette and her Children (Figure 1) (“Vigée-Lebrun, Louise-Elisabeth”). The portrait was finished in 1787 and was presented with the purpose of changing the public’s mindset regarding the queen of France. The queen was disliked for her extravagant lifestyle, stinginess, and disloyalty. Today, this portrait is considered one of France’s most significant national treasures and can be found in the Musée National des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, France. The portrait was done using oil paint on canvas, and is the largest ever created by Lebrun at 275 x 216.5 cm (“Marie Antoinette and Her Children”).
Marie Antoinette and her Children depicts Marie-Antoinette wearing an expensive, red velvet gown with her children around her. Marie Antoinette is shown seated upright with her youngest son on her knee, her daughter hooked on her arm staring up lovingly, and her eldest son, the dauphin, standing on the right. In addition, there appears to be an empty cradle behind the eldest son, which serves as a remembrance of the baby girl who passed away while the painting was in the works. The death of the baby girl also proposes the reason behind the queen’s somber expression. The countless details scattered in the portrait indicate how seriously Lebrun took her job to mend the queen’s reputation. The painting has several religious and historical references that are aimed to resonate with the French viewers. For example, the French painter, Jacques-Louis David, advised Lebrun to use a triangular alignment of the figures, similar to the artistic method seen in Renaissance portrayals of the Holy Family. Furthermore, the red color used for Marie-Antoinette dress was borrowed from Jean-Marc Nattier’s portrait of the beloved wife of Louis XV, Marie Leszczyńska. Unlike Marie-Antoinette, Leszczyńska was beloved for her kindness and piety. According to Paul Lang, Chief Curator at the National Gallery of Canada, Lebrun had the intention of depicting the queen as a sacred figure by placing her in the center of the canvas, with her feet hidden beneath her as she was to be floating. In relation to the history of Versailles, the viewer can see the well-known Hall of Mirrors in the left background. The Hall of Mirrors serve as a tribute to the first absolute monarch of France, Louis XIV. Moreover, the jewelry cabinet on the right appears to be in the shadows, which is a symbolic reference referring to Cornelia. The narrative goes that Cornelia was a citizen of ancient Rome, and mother to the politicians Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. When a visitor came to sell her jewelry, Cornelia brought out her children and representing that she does not need jewelry because her children were her precious treasures. Equally, Lebrun depiction of the cabinet shows that the queen’s treasures are her children (Stauble).
Nonetheless, the painting did not save Marie-Antoinette from the guillotine. Although Lebrun felt that the portrait represented the queen as a “good mother”, the viewers felt that the Marie-Antoinette looked too stiff and insincere (Milam, 236). This portrait is mainly acknowledged as a propagandist image due to its purpose to shift the public opinion of the infamous queen. Today however, Marie Antoinette and Her Children is considered one of France’s most significant national treasures.
Lebrun was viewed to be a master of technique, using color and studio props (such as shawls, turbans, hats and ribbons) to create a dramatic effect. In addition to her father, her artistic style was largely influenced by the classical sculptures and portraits of other artists, including Raphael, Rubens, and Van Dyck. Lebrun would be most closely be attributed to the Rococo art style. The Rococo is defined as a style in art, architecture, and a period in art history. The Rococo period includes the works that were created during the final decades of the reign of Louis XIV up to the start of the French Revolution in 1789. The artistic movement originated in France and emerged as a genre of interior design. The light, pastel colors and soft brushstrokes were a drastic contrast from the previous Baroque art style and the classical artworks of the 17th century. This style of art was widely popular with the aristocracy and the French court in Paris. At the start of the 18th century, Rococo began to spread throughout Europe and to the Americas, gaining renewed interest (Conisbee, 435-436). As seen in the examples of Rococo from Jean Antoine Watteau’s fêtes galantes, François Boucher’s pastorals, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s swinging women, aristocratic leisure was shown to be frivolous and sensual (Milam, 22). Lebrun’s use of pastels and subjects classified her as a Rococo artist. Her portraits were often times quite radiant and happy and showed the love between a mother and her daughter (Charles, 64). However, although Lebrun’s subject matter and pastel color palette can be classified as Rococo, her style is also associated with the later appearance of Neoclassicism.
Along with her portraits of European royalty, Lebrun also painted a great number of self-portraits. Her self-portraits were greatly influenced by the various artists whose work she admired, such as Peter Paul Rubens. For example, her self-portrait, Self Portrait in a Straw Hat (Figure 2), was inspired by Rubens’ portrait of sister-in-law, Suzanne Lunden (Sheriff). Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun was one of the most brilliant portraitists of her er. and She presented her portraits with charm, elegance, and meaning. Lebrun deserves recognition as a renowned artist of 18th-century France. She challenged critics with her talent and showed that women artists are just as skilled as the men.
Bibliography
Fig. 1. Marie Antoinette and her Children by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1787). Musée National des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon
Fig. 2. Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1782). The National Gallery
Charles, Victoria., and Klaus H. Carl. Rococo. Parkstone International, 2012. Print.
Conisbee, Philip, et al. French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2009: 435-436. Print.
Élisabeth Louise Vigée-LeBrun. National Museum of Women in the Arts, 2018, nmwa.org/explore/artist-profiles/élisabeth-louise-vigée-lebrun.
“Marie Antoinette and Her Children.” Vigée Le Brun: Women Artist Is Revolutionary France, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/656654?exhibitionId={31a1bee1-137f-4d0d-bf0c-751b9354bb6c}&oid=656654&pkgids=346&pg=0&rpp=20&pos=32&ft=*&offset=20.
May, Gita. Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun: The Odyssey of an Artist in an Age of Revolution, Yale University Press, New Haven; London, 2005. Print.
Milam, Jennifer D. Historical Dictionary of Rococo Art. Scarecrow Press, 2011. Print.
Montfort, Catherine R. “Self-Portraits, Portraits of Self: Adélaïde Labille-Guiard and Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun, Women Artists of the Eighteenth Century.” Pacific Coast Philology, vol. 40, no. 1, 2005, pp. 1–18. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25474166.
Sheriff, Mary D. Moved by Love Inspired Artists and Deviant Women in Eighteenth-Century France. University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Stauble, Katherine. “Marie Antoinette and Her Children: An Icon of French Painting.” National Gallery of Canada, 19 Apr. 2016, www.gallery.ca/magazine/in-the-spotlight/marie-antoinette-and-her-children-an-icon-of-french-painting.
Vigée-Lebrun, Louise-Elisabeth, 1755-1842. Marie-Antoinette and her Children. 1787. Artstor, library-artstor-org.proxy-wcupa.klnpa.org/asset/ARTSTOR_103_41822001576907