Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger (25 April 1824 – 22 September 1888) was a French figurative painter and academic artist and teacher known for his Classical and Orientalist subjects.
Education and career The Néo-Grecs and the Prix de Rome
Boulanger was born in Paris in 1824. He never knew his father, and when his mother's death left him orphaned at the age of fourteen, he became the ward of his uncle, Constant Desbrosses,Montrosier (1888), p. 276. who in 1840 sent him to study first under the history painter Pierre-Jules Jollivet and then at the atelier of Paul Delaroche, where Boulanger met and befriended his fellow student Jean-Léon Gérôme.
Boulanger and Gérome would become leading lights of the Néo-Grec movement in French art, which revisited the fascination of previous generations for the Classical world, but brought to its austere subject matter subversive touches of whimsy, sensuality, and eroticism. "When they appear on the contemporary art scene, the Néo-Grecs will be defended as rejuvenators of the Classical tradition by some, condemned as gravediggers of history painting by others…they rarely give an orthodox image of Antiquity, some, like Gérôme, Boulanger and Hamon, not hesitating to choose licentious subjects, to parody mythological characters, or to invent very personal allegories of Antiquity."Jagot (2013), p. 18.
In 1845, Boulanger was sent by his uncle to Algeria to tend to Desbrosses's business interests there. Boulanger was fascinated by all he saw, and what was planned as a two-month stay turned to eight, until Desbrosses threatened to cut off his funds. Boulanger brought back a large number of sketches which he used for his first Orientalist paintings.Montrosier (1888), p. 277. (This was the first of at least three trips to North Africa, including one in 1872 with Gérôme.Aubrun (1986), pp. 169–172.)
In 1848 and 1849, he shared communal living and working quarters with other artists of the Néo-Grec movement at the Chalet, 27 rue de Fleurus. The group also gathered at the atelier of Gérôme on rue de Sevres.Jagot (2013), p. 11 and 254. Boulanger turned his efforts to winning the Prix de Rome, and with it, a scholarship to the Académie de France à Rome. In 1848, he obtained second place with Saint Pierre chez Marie, and the next year he won the Grand Prix with Ulysse reconnu par Euryclée and departed for Rome, where he would remain until 1855. His education and research included study at the excavations of Pompeii.Jagot (2013), p. 182, 226. He also traveled to Greece.Javel (1888).
Each year, the students at Rome sent back to the Academy in Paris a painting to demonstrate their progress, and for public exhibition; Boulanger's works repeatedly disappointed the Academy and scandalized critics, beginning with the first, Phryné, in 1850. Wrote one reviewer: M. Boulanger, a first year pensionnaire, spent a lot of patience to paint with great finesse…a fat naked woman with red hair and slanted blue eyes, seated on rags of all colors and a scrap of cushion on which is engraved in Greek letters her name: Phryné. To take on this marvelous beauty who inspired Praxiteles' masterpiece and the famous Venus of Apelles, an artist must impose on himself the most severe purity of design, the utmost simplicity of line, the calm splendor of beauty. M. Boulanger's Phryné is far from responding to this program.Du Pays (1851).
In 1856, when his studies at Rome were complete, Boulanger took a second trip to North Africa,Aubrun (1986), pp. 169–172. and then returned to Paris. Boulanger moved into his own atelier at rue de La Rochefoucauld, 64, but continued to meet and socialize with the other Néo-Grecs. He became one of Jean-Léon Gérôme's closest friends; after 1863, Gérôme regularly entrusted him with the management of his studio at the École des Beaux-Arts during his travels in the East.Jagot (2013), p. 286.
The Pompeiian palace of Prince Napoleon
In 1855, Prince Napoléon, cousin of Napoleon III, decided to build a palace inspired by the villas of Pompeii, in particular by the Villa of Diomedes. The palace had rooms around an atrium open to the sky with a shallow pool below. Busts of the Bonaparte family surrounded the atrium, with a white marble statue of Napoleon I presiding in the guise of a deified Caesar. Gérôme took part in the project by making three paintings that he considered "perhaps the most beautiful things he ever signed."Gautier (1866), p. 21.
The Pompeiian palace was inaugurated on 14 February 1860, in the presence of the Emperor and Empress. Théophile Gautier was present to hear the recitation of his poem written for the occasion, La Femme de Diomède: Prologue. Then famous actors of the Théâtre-Français and the Comedie-Française performed The Flute Player, a play by Emile Augier, a friend of Gautier and the Néo-Grecs.Jagot (2013), p. 280-281.
Boulanger's Répétition théâtrale dans la maison d’un poète romain at the Salon of 1855 played a part in inspiring both the Pompeiian palace and its inauguration with a play. Boulanger was privileged to immortalize the occasion with a work presented at the Salon of 1861, Répétition du "Joueur de flûte" et de la "Femme de Diomède" chez le prince Napoléon (Rehearsal of "The Flute Player" and "Wife of Diomedes" at the Place of Prince Napoléon).The painting's full title as given in the catalogue for the Paris Salon of 1861 is Répétition du "Joueur de flûte" et de "la Femme de Diomède," chez S. A. I. le prince Napoléon, dans l’atrium de sa maison, avenue Montaigne. The painting depicts not the performance itself but a rehearsal, with only writers, actors, and a Black slave present.Safran (1980) pp.185–6 identifies the people in the painting.
Gautier wrote that the painting "will preserve the memory of a charming spectacle…[The actors] are ancients and moderns at the same time…M. Boulanger was able to merge, with rare spirit and a perfect fit, two apparently irreconcilable elements: the present and past, Paris and Pompeii before the eruption of Vesuvius!…rarely has an ancient pastiche been more successful."Gautier (1861), p. 69-70.
With its synthesis of art, architecture, theatricality, re-enactment, wry humor, and royal patronage, Boulanger's Répétition du "Joueur de flûte" may be seen as the apotheosis of the Néo-Grec aesthetic.
The Franco-Prussian War and the Commune When Prussian forces encircled Paris in 1870, Boulanger, like many of the artists who stayed in the city, having neither enlisted in the army nor fled abroad, became a member of the National Guard, joining ranks with his friend Charles Garnier, as well as Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Auguste Rodin, and Louis Émile Benassit.Chu (2013), p. 74. He remained in Paris during the brief ascendance and subsequent massacre of the Commune. Boulanger painted a series of works documenting the momentous events. These "visceral battle scenes" full of fire and carnage, quite unlike anything else in his oeuvre, are in the collection of the Musée Carnavalet.
The Classical world Boulanger would continue to evoke the world of the ancient Greeks and Romans throughout his career. Noting his deep research and attention to detail, one critic called him "a scholar at least as much as a virtuoso."Montrosier (1881), p. 21. Many of these paintings are in private collections, and some are known only from written descriptions or from lithographs or other reproductions of the originals.
Orientalist art Like his friend Gérôme, Boulanger would also paint Orientalist subjects throughout his career, drawing inspiration from his travels in North Africa.…Africa had opened up new horizons for him, had stirred in him unforgettable emotions, but had not thrown him into the great current into which Delacroix was to venture and from which, with his marvelous genius, Delacroix was to emerge unharmed. Gustave Boulanger brought back the brilliance of the Orient in his eye rather than in his thought. He dreamed of a quieter Orient, with broad lines, fine types, gently pleated draperies; an Orient with the sky of Greece.Montrosier (1888), p. 278.
Marie-Madeleine Aubrun sees in the artist's Orientalist works, as in his ancient world paintings, "his quest for an elsewhere" and "his attempt to apprehend the different."Aubrun (1986), p. 169.
Because museums preferred to collect his Classical subjects, Boulanger's Orientalist works were for a long time less well known, but in the 21st-century art market they are more sought after and bring higher prices.
Portraits and character studies Though less known for his portraiture, Boulanger painted and drew portraits throughout his career.
The Slave Market
Boulanger produced one of his most famous paintings near the end of his life, shown at the Paris Salon of 1886: Un Maquignon d’esclaves à Rome (A Slave Dealer in Rome), which has become better known as The Slave Market. A "pendant" painting, Esclaves à vendre (Slaves for Sale), followed in 1888 and was to be Boulanger's last exhibited painting.Javel (1888), p. 5. Though set in the ancient Roman world, these paintings are stylistically closer to Boulanger's Orientalist works. The realism is stark, with none of the playfulness and luxurious fantasy of his previous Classical paintings; The Slave Market seems a world away from Répétition du "Joueur de flûte".
The Slave Market is thought to be in a private collection. The status and location of Esclaves à vendre (known only from a black and white reproduction) is unknown.
Teacher and advocate of Academic art
Boulanger was an influential teacher with a long list of students.
At the prestigious Académie Julian, Boulanger, unlike many instructors, accepted both male and female students.Wien 1981, p. 42. Alice De Wolf Kellogg remembered Boulanger as her favorite teacher, writing, "His instruction was the simplest—most broad—most rousing…that I ever received."Blaugrund 1988, p. 12.
When Boulanger was inducted as a member of the Institut de France in 1882, he joined the faculty of the Beaux-Arts de Paris (more formally known as the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts). In his final years he was a teacher and a champion of Academic art and its traditions and methods. After joining the faculty he delivered and published two speeches. The first was Notice sur M. LehmannBoulanger, Gustave (1883) in 1883, an encomium to the recently deceased Henri Lehmann, whom Boulanger saw as an exemplar of artistic virtues.
The second speech was À nos élèves (To Our Students)Boulanger, Gustave (1885) delivered in 1885,So dated from the speech's appearance in Le XIXe siècle, 13 April 1885, with the remark, "M. Boulanger, professor at the École des Beaux-Arts, has just addressed to his students a rather long letter, which we think interesting to reproduce." in which Boulanger attacked what he saw as a decadent, vain striving for novelty in the arts. "We see this so-called novelty appear from year to year under pretentious and ill-justified names such as naturalism, impressionism, luminism, intentionism, tachismeA term used as early as 1878 to refer to a variety of pointillism; see Émile Bergerat, Les chefs-d'œuvre d'art à l'Exposition universelle 1878, vol 1, p. 91 and vol. 2, p. 102.—to use the slang with which they claim to glorify impotence and laziness." He went on to deliver a paean to the accomplishments of French art, praising the rigorous standards passed from masters to students that had made Paris the art capital of the world. He quoted Claudius Popelin: "Art must be a chain; it is when it breaks that there is decadence."
In response to this speech, Octave Mirbeau wrote a mocking rebuttal, "La Tristesse de M. Boulanger", which asserted that "the doctrines of M. Boulanger have no effect, no influence, good or bad, on men...He can write letters, heap volume upon volume, and deliver all the speeches he likes...He cannot make these ideas give talent to those who lack it, or take genius away from those who have it!"Mirbeau (1883, 1995), p. 152.