Vengeance and Justice Pursuing Crime by Pierre-Paul Prudhon, Part 17 of the Intro to Art and Artists of Our Time.
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Vengeance and Justice Pursuing Crime by Pierre-Paul Prudhon

Vengeance and Justice Pursuing Crime
From the picture by Pierre-Paul Prudhon.

 

...introduction continued;

    PIERRE-PAUL PRUDHON was another painter of the time whose art was born and grew up outside the school of David, resembling the productions of that school only as the flowers and fruits of any zone resemble one another in a general expression, while differentiated from the mass in certain details. No one looking at Prudhon's designs would doubt for a moment as to the time when they were made, but the spirit that animates them is one not shared by any of his contemporaries. He was born in Paris in 1765, and died in 1823. He came of poor parents, and was forced to earn his bread while stealing a little leisure for the study of his art, which he pursued by himself, and with no teaching except such as he gained by examining and studying the work of others. His designs early attracted attention by a grace and tenderness of feeling, a simplicity and naturalness that were strangers to the art of his time, and which failed of playing a more vigorous part in the revolution effected by David because their motives were confined to so narrow a sphere and dealt with subjects of no particular human interest. While all the other painters of his day were concerned with anecdotes, either of history or of daily life, or drew their subjects from books of romantic incident, Prudhon found his field in the domain of sentiment, pure and simple, and charmed with designs where nothing was told but the old eternal story of love - tender, passionate, sometimes erotic, but with the innocent freedom of the denizens of the woods and fields. Besides a number of illustrations of the vapid romances of the time, Prudhon made a series of designs for the "Daphnis and Chloe" of Longus, one of the Greek Romances, and these are reckoned among the most charming productions of his pencil. At the famous Salon of 1810, where the works of David, Girodet, Gerard and Gros were assembled, Prudhon also appeared with two of his best pictures; the two which are here reproduced, "Vengeance and Justice pursuing Crime" and...

continued...

 

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