Logos (est. 1995): Francois Lemoyne (1688-1737)

Monday, September 10, 2007

Francois Lemoyne (1688-1737)

Summary

French painter (b. 1688, Paris, d. 1737, Paris); also known as Francois Le Moine. Consumed with ambition, hard on himself and everyone else, Francois Le Moyne simply wanted to paint great ceiling decorations. Despite winning the Prix de Rome in 1711, Le Moyne could not visit Italy until 1723 and then spent only a few months there. His Parisian instructor, however, introduced him to the art of Raphael, Correggio, and Peter Paul Rubens. Like his Baroque predecessors, Le Moyne covered vast spaces with ambitious mythologies, yet his elegant figures and precious colors anticipated the Rococo. From Jean-Antoine Watteau he borrowed a refined figure type and Rubensian coloring. In 1727 Le Moyne was forced to split first prize in the Duc d'Antin's famous competition to promote history painting with his rival Jean-Francois de Troy. Probably in 1728, King Louis XV offered Le Moyne his most important commission: the ceiling of the Hercules Salon at Versailles. Completed in 1736, the Apotheosis of Hercules contains 142 figures, brilliant coloring and, contemporaries believed, the qualities of an epic poem. Louis XV immediately named Le Moyne premier peintre. Soon after, broken by excessive work, court jealousies and intrigues, and his wife's death, Le Moyne went mad and silently stabbed himself nine times. Le Moyne's pupils included Francois Boucher.

His works include: Hercules and Omphale, 1724; Perseus and Andromeda, 1723; Hunting Picnic, 1723; Time Saving Truth from Falsehood and Envy, 1737; Bather, 1724; Hercules and Omphale, 1724; The Continence of Scipio, 1726; and Pygmalion Seeing His Statue Come to Life, 1729. [Adapted from The Getty]

Books

Please browse our Amazon list of titles about Baroque Art. For rare and hard to find works we recommend our Alibris list of titles about Francois Lemoyne.