Winner of the coveted: Prix de Rome in 1861, Lefebvre fulfilled his early promise both
as a painter of meticulously executed portraits and as a teacher: during his
long career, he earned three Salon medals, was appointed to the French Academy of Fine Arts,
and attained the rank of Commander in the Legion of Honor.
A reviewer at the 1881 Paris Salon wrote the following about Jules-Joseph Lef bvre:
"It is sufficient to just mention his name in order to immediately evoke the memory
and the image of the thousand adorable creatures of which he is the father....
Jules Lef bvre, better than anyone else caresses, with a brush both delicate and sure,
the undulating contour of the feminine form". Like a typical academic artist, Lef bvre started
his career with the traditional subject matter of histories and other narratives.
It would not be till later in his career that he would focus exclusively on the human figure
in portraiture and especially the female figure, with great ability and success.
Lef bvre was born on March 14th, 1836. Though his father was only a baker, he nonetheless
encouraged his son to pursue painting, sending him to study in Paris in 1852.
There, Lef bvre became a pupil of: L on Cogniet and a year later started attending:
the cole des Beaux Arts. His debut at the Paris Salon was in 1855.
He then spent the next few years pursuing the coveted Prix de Rome (the main competition for
young painters, which would win him five years of study in Rome and a reputation
that would all but guarantee a successful career). In 1859, he came close placing
second. Two years later the history painting The Death of Priam would win him first place.
It would be during his stay in Rome that he would find his individual artistic niche.
Able to study the great Italian masters, Lef bvre was fascinated by the Mannerist painters,
especially Andrea del Sarto. He copied his work avidly and demonstrated Andrea
s influence in his painting: Boy Painting a Tragic Mask (1863).
It was also during this time that his interest in the female figure began,
painting his first in 1863. Among other works he did in Rome, he sent the narrative Roman Charity
to the salon of 1864 and painted Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi in 1866. The latter narrative,
however, was ill received by experts, arousing overwhelming criticism. That same year his parents
and one of his sisters died. These negative events in both his personal and professional life
sent him into severe depression. He emerged from his depression and
came back to Paris with a different approach to art and a change of interest in subject matter.
He apparently became disenchanted with the traditional formulaic approach to painting,
instead turning towards more precise rendering from life.
In 1868 he exhibited at the Salon, which unlike his last significant work,
won him much praise. Two years later, his allegory of Truth became his first great success.
A beautiful young woman holds up a mirror (the conventional symbol of truth).
This symbol, though, is at the very top of the painting, so, in order to get to it one s eye
has to caress the sensuous feminine curves over the length of the outstretched figure.
Shortly after the success of this figure, he was made an officer in the Legion of Honor.
What followed in the decades to come were variations on Truth.
It is not surprising then that he exhibited seventy-two portraits at the Paris Salon from
1855-1898. Most, of course, are of women. Among those who sat for him include his daughter Yvonne,
the Imperial Prince in 1874, and the novelist Alexandre Dumas
(1869), who also seems to have admired his figures, purchasing a Femme Nue in 1892.
In the 1870 s he became a teacher at the Academie Julien (an atelier that trained women artists as
well as men over a decade before they were also permitted into L cole des Beaux Arts). There he is
said to have insisted to his students on absolute precision in life drawing. There he became the
most admired and sought after teacher of American ex-patriots, who came to Paris to study. Among
his most famous American students, were Child Hassam, Frank Benson and Edmund Tarbell.
Following the success of Truth, his accolades kept accumulating. Having won increasingly significant
acclaim at the Universal Expositions, he ended up winning the grand prize in 1889.
In 1891, he was made a member of the Academie des Beaux Arts. And in 1898, he was promoted
to Commander in the Legion of Honor. What was admired then about Lef bvre,
and can be admired today is the idealized realism of his figures.
His "thousand adorable creatures" are beautiful yet individualized.
And Jules Joseph Lefebvre: died on February 24th 1911.