FLANDRIN, JEAN-HIPPOLYTE. - Born in Lyons on 23 March 1809, died in Rome on 31 March 1864. After studying in his homeland from 1829, he was in Paris at the Academy, a pupil of Ingres. Three years later he was in Rome, attracted by the art of the early Renaissance, and he studied the painting of Raphael.
And in Rome he began to orient himself toward that painting of religious subject and spirit that he was thereafter never to abandon for the rest of his life. In 1837 F. in fact painted a St. Clare Healing the Blind for the cathedral of Nantes, and, having returned to France, he began a vast and highly esteemed activity as a fresco painter.
Among his works are remembered: the paintings of the chapel of St. Joseph in the church of St-Séverin (1840-41), those of the choir of the church of St-Germain-des-Prés in Paris (1842-46), those of the church of St. Paul in Nîmes, the others of the church of St. Vincent de Paul, moreover in 1855 he painted the paintings in the apse of St. Martin d'Ainay in Lyons and then, finally, between 1856 and 1861, 20 Scenes from the Old and New Testaments in the nave of the Parisian church of St-Germain-des-Prés.
F., besides these paintings of a religious character, excelled in the art of portraiture, and numerous works of his are preserved in the principal museums of France and also in Italy. He was a purist painter, yet faithful to the teachings of Ingres, which one may say he never forgot. And even when he was drawn into the orbit of Roman purism, characterized by the activity of the Nazarenes, he knew how to maintain a tone of great formal and draughtsmanly dignity of French taste that was undoubtedly his finest merit.
Bibliography2 works
Emilio Lavagnino