Pictures of Napoleon 2

 J-D Ingres was David's most distinguished pupil and his icon (that really is the right word) of Napoleon as first Consul is stupendous. The pose derives from the lost statue of Zeus by Phidias and the props Napoleon is holding are associated with Charlemagne. It's a big painting- and my reaction on coming face to face with it was a combination of "Oh wow!" and "This is too, too silly!"



A-J Gros was introduced to Napoleon by his friend Josephine de Beauharnais- and presumably saw more of him up close than any other artist. He specialised in big figure compositions that are part propaganda and part reportage. His picture of Napoleon visiting plague-stricken soldiers at Jaffa and reaching out fearlessly to touch a sick man just as Christ might have done documents an incident that hadn't happened yet. When Napoleon did finally get round to visiting a pest house he ordered its inmates be euthanised with laudanum- an act of mercy that is open to misinterpretation



Eylau was one of the bloodiest battles of the Napoleonic wars- a slogging match between the French and the Russians that was fought to a standstill in the snow. Gros pictures Napoleon instructing his doctors to treat the wounded of both armies. 
While clearly propagandist it is also one of the most realistic battle pictures painted up to this time. Gros had seen war- and there's a man in the foreground who is very dead indeed.

Pictures of Napoleon 3

 If you hate a modern poltician you liken them to Hitler and if you admire them you liken them to Churchill or Lincoln but no-one in their right mind likens any modern leader to Napoleon.

Napoleon is just too extraordinary, his legacy too ambiguous. He did wonderful things, he did atrocious things, he was- to use a cliche that is really true in his case- a legend in his own lifetime. I've racked my brains and I can't think of anyone in the history books, ancient or modern, who compares to him- unless it's Alexander the Great.

The artists who were contemporary with him helped create the legend, those that came after him questioned it, but always from a respectful distance. They want to understand and explain the man behind the mask; they never succeed.

Paul Delaroche painted his Napoleon Crossing the Alps as a direct riposte to David. Instead of the rearing charger there's a mule and the mule is being guided by peasant. This is almost certainly how it really happened, but the the young general is still intense and farseeing and no less heroic for being cold.



J-L  Gerome paints the riddle confronting the Riddle in a work called either "Napoleon and the Sphinx" or "Oedipus". I love this painting



I used to think this next painting showed the Retreat from Moscow. It doesn't. It shows the French coming away from the Battle of Laon- an inconclusive engagement fought against the Prussians in the months before Waterloo. Napoleon, the man apart, grim but determined, rides ahead of his marshals and generals, at least one of whom seems to be falling asleep in the saddle. The artist is E. Meissonier.



Finally, in a change from all these French artists we have a Scot-William Quiller Orchardson- who- painting at the end of the 19th century- shows us Napoleon on board the Bellerephon (or Billy Ruffian in sailor-speak) on his way to exile in St Helena. The man of destiny stands alone and broods, the British officers huddle behind him and marvel.

By the way, I think we greatly undervalue this kind of narrative art. We lionise the Impressionists at the expense of all their contemporaries but painters like Gerome and Orchardson were doing something the Impressionists didn't even attempt and their work has its own validity and is capable of moving us deeply.

Pictures Of Napoleon: Part 4

 Pictures of Napoleon in exile on St Helena mostly show a man in military garb mooching around, usually on the rocky sea shore, feeling ever so sorry for himself. None of them has much value- either artistic or historical. In fact Napoleon kept himself busy, he dictated his memoirs, took long walks, played with the local children, practiced shooting with pistols and (apparently) a crossbow and indulged a new-found passion for gardening. There's a charming story about him ordering straw hats for the Chinese labourers who worked with him because he didn't want them suffering sunstroke. In fact most of the stories about Napoleon in exile make you think, "What a lovely man."

Here's Orchardson (again) showing Napoleon dictating his memoirs- isolated but still dynamic



And here, in a lithograph by Horace Vernet, he's pictured in in his gardening clothes, a little fat man sitting in the sun with his newspaper.



Back now to the glory days, and a new century.

Many actors have played Napoleon. I'm not sure any have been all that convincing- apart from this man, Albert Dieudonne, who starred in Abel Gance's fabulous silent epic, Napoleon- a movie that experimented with colour, split screen, cinemascope and you name it.





Napoleon died on St Helena aged 51. Dieudonne lived into his 80s and left instructions that he should be buried in his Napoleon clothes.....