Jean-Joseph Taillasson

Jean-Joseph Taillasson (6 July 1745 — 11 November 1809[2]) was a French history painter and portraitist, draftsman and art critic.

Taillasson was born at Blaye, near Bordeaux.[3] His poem "Le Danger des règles dans les Arts" was noted with approval by the Danish visitor to Paris, Tønnes Christian Bruun-Neergaard, and an elegy "Sur la Nuit", he thought, seemed fit to soften the least sensitive heart.[4] who matured his talent in the Paris ateliers of Joseph-Marie Vien (from 1764)[5] and Nicolas Bernard Lépicié and, having won third place in the Prix de Rome competition, 1769, spent four years, 1773-77, in Italy. At his return to Paris he set an early example of neoclassicism.

His Observations sur quelques grands peintres,[6] (Paris, Duminil-Lesueur) 1807, offered anti-academic advice somewhat at variance with his own manner; some of the collected observations had previously appeared in the Journal des Arts.[7] He died in Paris.

Selected works

Notes

  1. ^ The anecdote, in which the poet read the passage in Book VI in praise of Octavia's late son Marcellus, and Octavia fainted with grief, was recorded in the late fourth-century vita of Virgil by Aelius Donatus.
  2. ^ Cyclopedia.
  3. ^ John Denison Champlin, Charles Callahan Perkins, Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings (1887) s.v. "Taillasson, Jean Joseph".
  4. ^ (Bruun-Neergaard, ''Sur la situation des beaux arts en France: ou lettres d'un Danois a son ami (pp. 140-41, under the date 12 germinal an 9 [3 April 1802]).
  5. ^ "Taillasson , très-bon compositeur" remarked Bruun-Neergaard.
  6. ^ Full title, Observations sur quelques grands peintres, dans lesquelles on cherche à fixer les caractères distinctifs de leur talent, avec un précis de leur Vie
  7. ^ Remarked on by Bruun-Neergaard; see also Debra Schrishuhn, "The Observations Of Jean-Joseph Taillasson: Anti-Academic Admonitions From A Seasoned Academician" Proceedings Of The Consortium On Revolutionary Europe(1997:651-58).
  8. ^ a b c d Cyclopedia
  9. ^ Bruun-Neergaard 1802:141.