Great masters of the past — Jean-Baptiste Greuze
Life and works of Greuze
Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805) was a French genre and portrait painter. He is supposed to have quoted his father’s and grandfather’s profession as a roofer in his birth certificate provided at the certification of his wedding. He later referenced his father and grandfather’s vocations as architects when he applied to the academy. He is known as the one painter who initiated the mid-18th century vogue for sentimental and moralizing anecdotes in painting. Greuze studied at Lon and then at Royal Academy in Paris.
Anita Brookner’s “Jean-Baptiste Greuze — I.” Burlington Magazine 98 (May 1956), p. 158, fig. 34, illustrates Moitte’s engraving after Mieris’s L’Œuf cassé (fig. 35), by which Greuze was inspired, and comments on Dutch and Flemish influence.
The author, Anitha B, writes in the Burlington Magazine, “The pictures by Greuze shown at the Exhibition of Eighteenth-Century Masters at the Royal Academy, 1954–5, did nothing either to enhance or to diminish the reputation of this much-maligned artist.”
Broken Eggs, 1756, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, French — Stretched Canvas
He is the master that gave the world such beautiful works of art as Les Oeufs Cassés — Broken eggs, The Laundress, The Marriage contract, and many more priceless pieces of art.
Painter’s Childhood
Jean-Baptiste Greuze, the sixth of a family of nine children, was born at Tournus, near Chalon-Sur-Sa6ne, on 21st August 1725. His father and grandfather were roofers. His godmother was listed as the wife of a baker. He was not expected to follow in his father’s footsteps as he was not one of the eldest children. There are varying accounts of whether he received encouragement at home for his chosen profession of an artist.
He became an apprentice under Charles Grandon, a portraitist, in Lyon. Later on, he moved to Paris. He studied at the academy where he was an outsider. He received encouragement from Charles Natoire, Jean Baptiste Pigalle, Louis de Silvestre.
Career
There were some doubts cast on whether he had indeed painted the pictures. After successive exhibitions, he began to be regarded as a serious artist. He tasted his first success at the Salon of 1755 with his moralizing genre painting of ‘ Father Reading the Bible to His Children‘ (1755). After his acquaintance with Denis Diderot, he received encouragement for his inclination toward the melodramatic genre. He reached the height of popular acclaim after his works such as The Village Betrothal (1761), The Father’s Curse (1765).
Resentful of Academy’s decision
In 1769, Greuze submitted his historical painting ‘Septimius Severus Reproaching Caracalla‘ to the Salon, hoping that the painting would gain him admission to the academy. But the Academy would admit him to membership only as a genre painter. Resentful of the Academy’s decision, he exhibited his works in his own studio for the next 30 years. But by the 1780s, his work had gone out of fashion, his talent was exhausted and the source of his income gradually waned.
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