Leon Bonnat
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Léon Joseph Florentin
Bonnat (June 20, 1833 – September 8, 1922) was a French painter.
He was born in Bayonne, but from
1846 to 1853 he lived in Madrid, Spain, where his father owned a
bookshop.[1] While tending his father's shop, he copied engravings
of works by the Old masters, developing a passion for drawing. In
Madrid he received his artistic training under Madrazo. He later
worked in Paris, where he became known as a leading portraitist,
never without a commission. His many portraits show the influence of
Velázquez, Jusepe de Ribera and other Spanish masters, as well as
Titian and Van Dyke, whose works he studied in the Prado. Following
the period in Spain Bonnat worked the ateliers of the history
painters Paul Delaroche and Leon Cogniet (1854) in Paris. Despite
repeated attempts, he failed to win the prix de Rome, finally
receiving only a second prize. However, a scholarship from his
native Bayonne allowed him to spend three years in Rome (1858–60)
independently. During his stay in Rome, he became friends with Edgar
Degas, Gustave Moreau, Jean-Jacques Henner and the sculptor Henri
Chapu.
He won a medal of honor in Paris in
1869, going on to become one of the leading artists of his day.
Bonnat went on to win the Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur and
became a professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1882. Bonnat was
quite popular with American students in Paris. In addition to his
native French, he spoke Spanish and Italian and knew English well,
to the relief of many monolingual Americans. In May 1905 he
succeeded Paul Dubois as director of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
Bonnat "was a liberal teacher who stressed simplicity in art above
high academic finish, as well as overall effect rather than detail,"
explains Julius Kaplan (see References). Bonnat's emphasis on
overall effect on the one hand, and rigorous drawing on the other,
put him in a middle position with respect to the Impressionists and
academic painters like his friend Jean-Léon Gérôme.
Bonnat's vivid portrait-painting of
contemporary celebrities is his most characteristic work, but his
most important works are arguably his powerful religious paintings,
such as his Christ on the Cross (now in the collection of the Musée
du Petit Palais in Paris, but not currently on display), Job (in the
Musée Bonnat), St Vincent Taking the Place of Two Galley Slaves (at
the church of Saint-Nicholas des Champs in Paris), and the large
Martyrdom of St Denis for the Pantheon in Paris. However, he
received few commissions for religious and historical paintings, and
most of his output consists of portraits. He also produced genre
paintings of Italian peasants, and a small number of Orientalist
scenes.
The writers Émile Zola and
Théophile Gautier were among Bonnat's supporters. Gautier hailed him
as "the antithesis of Bouguereau," because of the stark naturalism
and lack of surface finish that characterize Bonnat's work. Bonnat
is often wrongly classed as an academic painter. In fact, he had
friends and connections among the independent artists of his time,
such as Edgar Degas, whom he met during his stay in Rome and who
painted two portraits of Bonnat, and Édouard Manet, who shared his
predilection for Spanish painting. He taught together with Pierre
Puvis de Chavannes in the private atelier he ran before becoming
professor at the École. He supported Auguste Rodin's candidacy for
the Institut, and defended Gustave Courbet's submissions to the
salon.
In a gesture of gratitude for the
help he had been provided in his youth, Bonnat built a museum in his
native city of Bayonne, the Musée Bonnat. Most of the works in the
museum are from Bonnat's personal collection of works of art,
amassed over a lifetime of travelling around Europe. It includes an
exceptionally fine collection of old master drawings from Leonardo
da Vinci and Michelangelo to Ingres and Géricault.
Bonnat died on September 8, 1922,
at Monchy-Saint-Éloi; he never married, and lived for much of his
life with his mother and sister in the Place Vintimille
