Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-LeBrun (1755-1842 г) — French portrait painter and real beauty, dared to challenge the prim and conservative society of the XVIII century. Her portraits were called “blatant vulgarity”, “the fall of manners”, “unacceptable willfulness”, but nevertheless sincerely praised and admired them. True, not all, for example, Catherine II could not tolerate Vigee-LeBrun, and this dislike passed on to creativity. But this hardly made her artwork worse.
Élisabeth Vigée- Lebrun. Self-portrait
Elisabeth's father was a not too famous and successful artist Louis Vigée, and he, seeing that at a young age his daughter is not inferior to him in skill, decided to teach her to paint. Soon it became clear that Elizabeth awaits great prospects, the main thing - to take advantage of their chance. But, unfortunately, the girl's father died very early, and her mother - a woman rigid and squabbling, decided to remarry, and her grown-up daughter only hindered her. So she told Elizabeth to take care of her own sustenance, and by the time she was 16 years old, the young artist had her own regular clientele. She unmistakably grasped the main secret of success: portraits must like customers, so did not hesitate to embellish them ungodly. She was booked to pose for several months in advance, and mostly men, because Elizabeth was very pretty and cheerful, and many people liked not so much her work as the artist herself.
Self-portrait with palette
She married Jean Baptiste Lebrun, a first-rate art dealer and art dealer, and gained access to the favor of rich and noble clients. She was invited to the best houses in Paris, and at the age of 23 Vigée-Lebrun first painted a portrait of Louis XVI's wife Marie Antoinette. Here two pleasant in all respects ladies found each other. Between them began a sincere friendship and constant cooperation. Marie Antoinette for all the years of their acquaintance ordered Vigée-Lebrun more than 30 portraits.
Marie Antoinette put in a good word for Vigée-Lebrun before the Royal Academy of Painting, and there accepted her into their ranks, that those years was something out of the ordinary.
Self-Portrait with Her Daughter, Julie 1786
And Vigée-Lebrun continued to eupatize the public. She painted herself in a self-portrait with a half-open mouth, revealing her wonderful teeth, which was considered a real nonsense: it was customary to keep the mouth strictly closed, and any smile was considered indecent. Critics were outraged: “what a gesture, can not follow the traditions, not invent something out of the ordinary.
A later portrait of Vigée-Lebrun, in which she depicted herself with her shoulders uncovered, also suffered, and the howls of discontent were much louder this time.
Self-Portrait with Her Daughter, Julie 1789
And in 1783, Vigée-Lebrun wrote Marie Antoinette in a home dress-shirt, in which she and went usually in the palace. But this outfit did not correspond at all to the status of royalty, and to please public opinion Vigée-Lebrun rewrote the portrait, depicting the queen in an official silk dress.
Marie Antoinette in a Muslin dress 1783
However, she often had to refine her artwork, and it was not a matter of performance skill, but of the desire to write boldly and freely, not too consistent with the extremely strict proprieties of the time.
Bather. Portrait of her daughter Julie.
During the French Revolution, Vigée-Lebrun, as a favorite of the Queen, had to quickly pack her bags. She traveled throughout Europe and wrote portraits of influential persons in his distinctive style, where the main thing - “sweetness and captivation”, a real gloss of the XVIII century. Gradually, even stopped caring about the external similarity, adding to many female portraits of the features of her favorite, good was a real beauty, and self-portraits created a lot, because the hand itself stretched to write that way, and not otherwise. But once it came to her badly, when Ekaterina II, believing the exhortations of the courtiers, suddenly ordered a portrait of her granddaughters Elena and Alexandra.
Portrait of Emperor Pavel I's Daughters 1796 - a painting with “sleeves painted on”
However, enlightened Ekaterina II was not satisfied with Vigée-Lebrun's work: “their facial features are distorted beyond recognition, it is not even clear which of the girls is older, they resemble little pugs on the sofa, fearfully pressed against each other, in vulgar dresses with obscenely short sleeves. Vigée-Lebrun's sleeves eventually had to be added, but the portrait itself could not be corrected so that it fully satisfied Ekaterina II - it was easier to draw a new one.
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