François Fleury-Richard
Encyclopedia
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
– 14 March 1852, Écully
Écully
Écully is a commune in the Rhône department in eastern France.Just west of Lyon, Écully is the location of the Paul Bocuse Institute.It is also the location of many higher education institutions, including Ecole de Management de Lyon and Ecole Centrale de Lyon.-References:*...
), sometimes called Fleury-Richard, was a painter of the École de Lyon. A student of Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David was an influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era...
, Fleury-Richard and his friend Pierre Révoil
Pierre Révoil
Pierre Révoil was a French painter of the Troubadour style. He was the elder brother of the poet Louise Colet and friend of François Fleury-Richard.- Bibligraphic reference :...
were precursors of the Troubador style.
Life
The son of a magistrate, Fleury François Richard studied at the collège de l'Oratoire in LyonLyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
then at the école de Dessin
École nationale des beaux-arts de Lyon
The École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts de Lyon is a school of art and design in Lyon, located in Les Subsistances, in the 1st arrondissement of Lyon.-Directors:* 1960-1974 : Jean Coquet* 1974-1992 : Philippe Nahoum* 1992-1998 : Guy Issanjou...
under Alexis Grognard. At the latter he met Pierre Révoil
Pierre Révoil
Pierre Révoil was a French painter of the Troubadour style. He was the elder brother of the poet Louise Colet and friend of François Fleury-Richard.- Bibligraphic reference :...
. In 1796 he joined the Paris studio of Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David was an influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era...
. His first paintings had major success and he mingled with the Paris intelligentsia, among whom the Troubador style was highly favoured. He became the favourite painter of empress Joséphine de Beauharnais
Joséphine de Beauharnais
Joséphine de Beauharnais was the first wife of Napoléon Bonaparte, and thus the first Empress of the French. Her first husband Alexandre de Beauharnais had been guillotined during the Reign of Terror, and she had been imprisoned in the Carmes prison until her release five days after Alexandre's...
, who bought many of his paintings, so that the European renown gained by his first works was recognised by Madame de Staël.
In 1808 he set up his own studio at the palais Saint-Pierre
Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon
The Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon is a municipal museum of fine arts in the French city of Lyon. It is housed near place des Terreaux in a former Benedictine convent of the 17th and 18th centuries. It was restored between 1988 and 1998, and despite these important restoration works it remained open...
at Lyon, having been granted it by the city for the benefits he had brought to it by his reputation. He was initiated into the Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge of Isis in 1809, and in 1814 married a banker's daughter, Blanche Menut. He was made a knight of the Légion d'honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
in 1815.
Seeking inspiration, he visited Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
and the Dauphiné
Dauphiné
The Dauphiné or Dauphiné Viennois is a former province in southeastern France, whose area roughly corresponded to that of the present departments of :Isère, :Drôme, and :Hautes-Alpes....
. He served as a professor at the École des beaux-arts de Lyon from 1818 to 1823. In 1851 he set himself up at Écully
Écully
Écully is a commune in the Rhône department in eastern France.Just west of Lyon, Écully is the location of the Paul Bocuse Institute.It is also the location of many higher education institutions, including Ecole de Management de Lyon and Ecole Centrale de Lyon.-References:*...
, devoting himself to writing. He edited his Souvenirs, lives of painters and a work on painting in the second-order towns of France, Quelques réflexions sur l'enseignement de la peinture dans les villes de second ordre.
Critique
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
-producing town, but he was mainly formed by his time in the neo classical atmosphere of David's studio. Like other English and German artists of the era Fleury-Richard was passionate about history and fascinated by medieval chivalry and the Renaissance. His visit to the Musée des monuments français, where he saw the tomb of Valentina Visconti
Valentina Visconti
Not to be confused with Valentina Visconti, Queen of CyprusValentina Visconti was the wife of Louis de Valois, Duke of Orléans, a younger brother of Charles VI of France....
on display, inspired his first major work in a utopian and melancholic Troubadour style, which also originated in David's studio. This style would impose a powerful historicist current on the masters of the 14th and 15th centuries, a more anecdotal that truly historical iconography. François-René Martin presents this tendency as "a retreat into the private sphere. Richard was notably amazed by the works attributed to the king-poet "bon Roi René" and most particularly by his art history treatise Le Cuer d’amours espris.
On his return to Lyon, he cultivated his friendship with Pierre Révoil
Pierre Révoil
Pierre Révoil was a French painter of the Troubadour style. He was the elder brother of the poet Louise Colet and friend of François Fleury-Richard.- Bibligraphic reference :...
and, with Révoil and a small inner-circle, discovered nature and the archaeological remains around Lyon, in Fourvière
Fourvière
Fourvière is a district of Lyon, France located on a hill immediately west of the old part of the town, rising abruptly from the river Saône and then gently sloping down to the north-west. It is the site of the original Roman settlement of Lugdunum...
, Saint-Just
Saint-Just, Lyon
Saint-Just is a quarter in the 5th arrondissement of Lyon, on the Fourvière hill....
or the Île Barbe
Île Barbe
The Île Barbe is an island in the middle of the Saône, in the 9th arrondissement of Lyon, France....
. It was in this context that Révoil, in 1798, showed both nature and remains in a drawing he offered to his "brother". To the Troubadour painters' historicism he blended "a poetry of nature" and "researches into distance or loneliness". Also the abandoned crypt of Saint Irénée at Saint-Just was used by Fleury-Richard in his studies for "A Knight in prayer in a chapel, preparing himself for combat"; the construction used in "Young girl at a fountain" was a Roman sarcophagus at Île-Barbe; also at Île-Barbe, associated to the cloister of Notre-Dame-de-l'Isle at Vienne
Vienne, Isère
Vienne is a commune in south-eastern France, located south of Lyon, on the Rhône River. It is the second largest city after Grenoble in the Isère department, of which it is a subprefecture. The city's population was of 29,400 as of the 2001 census....
in The Hermitage of Vaucouleurs.
When some scholars at the start of the 20th century sought to connect him to the école lyonnaise despite his training in Paris, his national career and his painting - the historical genre was not specific to Lyon..
In Fleury-Richard's critical writings scholars find a reflection prefiguring of his attachment to Symbolism
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
before Symbolism even existed: "Painting is not an imitation of reality. It is a symbol, a figurative language which presents the image of thought; and thought rises to the source of infinite beauty, there finding the archetypical forms signalled by Plato, of which created beings are only copies."
Works
- Valentine of MilanValentina ViscontiNot to be confused with Valentina Visconti, Queen of CyprusValentina Visconti was the wife of Louis de Valois, Duke of Orléans, a younger brother of Charles VI of France....
weeping for the death of her husband Louis of Orléans (c. 1802), Hermitage MuseumHermitage MuseumThe State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...
, Saint-Petersburg - Charles VIICharles VII of FranceCharles VII , called the Victorious or the Well-Served , was King of France from 1422 to his death, though he was initially opposed by Henry VI of England, whose Regent, the Duke of Bedford, ruled much of France including the capital, Paris...
writing his farewell to Agnès SorelAgnès SorelAgnès Sorel , known by the sobriquet Dame de beauté, was a favourite mistress of King Charles VII of France, for whom she bore three daughters....
(1804) musée national des châteaux de Malmaison et de Bois-Préau, Rueil-MalmaisonRueil-MalmaisonRueil-Malmaison is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department of France. It is located 12.6 kilometers from the center of Paris.-Name:... - A Knight in prayer in a chapel, preparing for combat (1805), musée des beaux-arts de LyonMusée des beaux-arts de LyonThe Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon is a municipal museum of fine arts in the French city of Lyon. It is housed near place des Terreaux in a former Benedictine convent of the 17th and 18th centuries. It was restored between 1988 and 1998, and despite these important restoration works it remained open...
- The death of saint Paul the hermit (1810) musée Gassendi Digne
- Tannegui du Chastel saving the Dauphin (1819) musée national du château de FontainebleauFontainebleauFontainebleau is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southeast of the centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a sub-prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department, and it is the seat of the arrondissement of Fontainebleau...
- The Hermitage of Vaucouleurs (1819), musée du Louvre, ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
- Little Red Riding HoodLittle Red Riding HoodLittle Red Riding Hood, also known as Little Red Cap, is a French fairy tale about a young girl and a Big Bad Wolf. The story has been changed considerably in its history and subject to numerous modern adaptations and readings....
(c. 1820), musée du Louvre, Paris - Le TasseTorquato TassoTorquato Tasso was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata , in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem...
in prison, visited by Montaigne (1821), Lyon - Vert Vert (1821) Lyon
- The death of the prince de Talmont (c. 1822), musée de Brou, Bourg-en-BresseBourg-en-BresseBourg-en-Bresse is a commune in eastern France, capital of the Ain department, and was capital of the former province of Bresse . It is located north-northeast of Lyon.The inhabitants of Bourg-en-Bresse are known as Burgiens.-Geography:...
- The Charterhouse of St Bruno (1822) musée de GrenobleGrenobleGrenoble is a city in southeastern France, at the foot of the French Alps where the river Drac joins the Isère. Located in the Rhône-Alpes region, Grenoble is the capital of the department of Isère...
- Young girl at a fountain (1825) Lyon
- Comminges and Adélaïde at the couvent de La Trappe (1844), Lyon
- Interior of a convent (Couvent des Cordeliers de l'Observance), Lyon
- Scene in a ruined chapel, Lyon
- Entrance to a convent, Lyon
- Jacques de MolayJacques de MolayJacques de Molay was the 23rd and last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, leading the Order from 20 April 1292 until it was dissolved by order of Pope Clement V in 1312...
, grandmaster of the Templars, Rueil-Malmaison - Madame Elisabeth in her garden of Montreuil, musée national du château et des Trianons, VersaillesVersaillesVersailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
Sources
- Le Temps de la peinture - Lyon 1800 - 1914, op. cit. p. 305-306, 6 et ss.
- Base Joconde
- Musée des beaux-arts de LyonMusée des beaux-arts de LyonThe Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon is a municipal museum of fine arts in the French city of Lyon. It is housed near place des Terreaux in a former Benedictine convent of the 17th and 18th centuries. It was restored between 1988 and 1998, and despite these important restoration works it remained open...