Painting the Beautiful Women

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780 –1867) was a French Neoclassical painter. His paintings suggest that he had tilted his work towards romanticism movement of painting. For a period he depended on the income received from miscellaneous pencil drawings he did for the tourists. La Grande Odalisque is one of his memorable paintings that he did on commission.                                 

The French artist Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres had acquired his style of painting and drawing from the early stage of his career. He painted the dresses of his models with equal grace as he painted the spotless skin of the women. During the passage of his artistic journey, his style of functioning rarely changed. He had from the beginning of his art career proved her artistic prowess in executing the suavity of outline and extraordinary control of the parallel that would help modeling the forms. Ingres believed that the drawing is the probity of the art, the honesty of the art depicted. So he applied his beliefs in his paintings, too. Thus his paintings reflected the presence of proper drawing and also witness the firmness of the outline underneath the art-piece.

In this portrait Ingress had displayed most of the characteristics his paintings were known to be possessing. After Ingres completed many illustrious portraits of the people of royal families and other people, he got the commission for painting this portrait of an extraordinary beautiful lady. The lady was twenty-eight-year-old princesse de Broglie (1825–1860). It was given to the artist’s understanding that the princess was shy in postures and deeply religious.

  In this portrait the lady is unquestionably beautiful beyond description. But the artist has poured his painting skills and intuitions in making the portrait so beautiful. Apart from natural beauty of the model princess—the lady sitting for portrait—the use of blue colour catches the viewers’ eyes. Bright colours, blue and yellow used as dominant colours, with a subdued and smooth background, narrate how the painter had mastered his skill for creating a chiaroscuro. This has created a sense of volume in the figure.