Barthélemy Menn

Barthélemy Menn
undate photo from the collections of the Bibliothèque de Genève
Born20 May 1815
Geneva, Switzerland
Died10 October 1893
Coinsins, Switzerland
NationalitySwiss
EducationGeneva Art Society and apprenticeships
Known forPainting
Notable workWetterhorn from Hasliberg
Movementplein air painting and paysage intime

Barthélemy Menn (20 May 1815 – 10 October 1893) was a Swiss painter and draughtsman who introduced the principles of plein-air painting and the paysage intime into Swiss art.

Early life

Menn was the youngest of four sons, born in Geneva to Louis John Menn, a confectioner from Scuol in the canton of Grisons, and Charlotte-Madeleine-Marguerite Bodmer, the daughter of a wealthy farmer from Coinsins in the Canton de Vaud. Already at the age of twelve, Menn took drawing lessons from the little-known Jean Duboi (1789–1849), and later, he entered the drawing school of the Geneva Arts Society [fr]. The repeated claim that he was also a pupil of the famous enameller Abraham Constantin appears to be erroneous.

Farmhouse in Coinsins

In 1831, Menn was second in the annual drawing competition of the Geneva Art Society. The following year, he entered the studio of the Swiss history painter Jean-Léonard Lugardon, who was a pupil of Baron Gros[1] and became acquainted with Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. There, Menn was educated in figure drawing and composition before heading for Paris, where, in fall 1833, he entered the studio of Ingres. He was, therefore, no beginner when meeting the master, but needed some polishing and refinement in his art. In a letter to his friend Jules Hébert, Menn reported on the new situation: "Everybody, even the eldest in the studio tremble before Mr. Ingres. One fears him a lot in such a way that his corrections have a great impact. He is of an extreme sensibility."[2] while the education in Ingres’ studio has been described by Théophile Silvestre, as follows: "The students spend half of their time studying nature and half studying the masters among which they are especially attached to Phidias, the bas-reliefs of the Parthenon, classical sculpture in general."[3] This explains why among Menn's early works there are many copies of the Parthenon frieze that had been accessible in Paris as a set of plaster casts at the École des Beaux-Arts since 1816.[4] Menn also copied several works by Raffael, Titian, Veronese and Rubens in the Louvre, and works by Ingres.[5]

When the latter decided to give up his studio to take the post as director of the French Academy in the Villa Medici in Rome, Menn returned to his grandparents in Coinsins before following his master in fall 1834. His journey led him first via Milan to Venice, where he met briefly with his compatriot Louis Léopold Robert, and copied works by Titian and Tintoretto. He then travelled via Padua and Bologna to Florence, where he met old classmates from Ingres’ studio, and arrived finally in Rome in spring 1835. There, Menn copied works by Raphael and Michelangelo, but he also started to produce extraordinary fresh small landscape paintings in the open air. In summer 1836, he visited the Campagna, Capri and Naples, where too he drew and painted landscapes directly from nature, and copied classical antiquities from Pompeii as well as Giovanni Bellini's Transfiguration in the Museo Borbonico.

Self-portrait

When back in Rome, he produced history - and genre paintings, of which in 1837, he sent 'Solomon presented to Wisdom by his Parents' (Salomon présenté à la sagesse par son père et sa mère) to the annual Salon in Geneva. Menn returned via Florence, Siena and Viterbo to Paris in late 1838, where he exhibited at the Salon from 1839 to 1843, and where he became the drawing master of Maurice Dudevant, the son of George Sand. In her circle, he became acquainted with Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) who wanted to employ him as an assistant while working on the decoration of the cupola of the library in the Palais du Luxembourg. At the same time, Menn got to know the painters of the Barbizon School; especially Charles Daubigny. Most importantly, however, Menn became friends with Camille Corot, who, from 1842 onwards, visited Switzerland frequently. It was also in Paris that he became acquainted with members of the Bovy family of Geneva who were followers of the utopian socialist ideas of Charles Fourier.

Later career

Fresco from the Salle des chevaliers, Castle of Gruyères

Due to lack of commissions, Menn returned to Geneva, where, in 1844, he applied in vain for a teaching position at the local art school. In the following year, he exhibited a large alpine landscape, "Wetterhorn from Hasliberg", which caused a minor scandal as it did not meet the public's and critics’ expectations of smooth, highly finished, heroic alpine views. This incident did not help much in getting him a public job as professor of painting or drawing. Hence, he started to accept private pupils in his studio. In these years, Menn also experimented together with Jules Darier, another of Corot's friends in Geneva, in producing daguerreotypes, though none of them are known to have been preserved. He also travelled again extensively, this time along the Rhone Valley and to the South of France. It was in these years that he turned completely to the paysage intime (intimate landscape) and achieved similar results to those of Corot, without attaining the latter's impressive level of creativity. In 1850, Menn was appointed director of the Geneva art school and from then on taught figure drawing, rather than landscapes, for 42 years. In this position, he trained two generations of Swiss painters, among them Eugène Burnand, Pierre Pignolat [fr], Edouard Vallet and Ferdinand Hodler, who reputedly said: ‘It is to him [Menn] that I owe everything’.[6]

Menn made a second voyage to Rome in 1852 and, in conjunction with Corot, Henri Baron (1816–1885), Armand Leleux [fr] (1818–1885) and François-Louis Français, decorated the large salon in Gruyères Castle that then belonged to the Bovy family. Menn also organized three exhibitions with contemporary French painting in Geneva in 1857, 1859 and 1861 that showed works by Corot, Courbet, Daubigny and Delacroix. Yet, the critics in Calvin's hometown were harsh and hostile towards contemporary art, which annoyed Menn so much as that he resolved never to exhibit in public again. He became even reluctant to sell his works privately and finally, in the 1880s, destroyed many of his paintings. In 1865, at the age of fifty, Menn married the widow of his cousin Jean Bodmer, Louise Bodmer-Gauthier (1818–1887), who brought with her a beautiful estate at Coinsins. It is here that Menn found peace and painted most of his last landscapes.

Legacy

Menn's grave

Although Menn was trained as a history painter and had, during his last forty years, only taught figure drawing, it was he who challenged the Swiss academic landscape tradition as early as 1845. At that time, the internationally successful Alexandre Calame and the somewhat older François Diday dominated Swiss alpine painting with romantic, wild and fantastic mountain sceneries that have carefully composed foregrounds against which distant but highlighted mountain peaks are set under a pleasantly blue sky – or in a frightening storm. Menn, however, when exhibiting his Wetterhorn from Hasliberg at the annual art exhibition in Geneva, had not only ventured into the domain of his competitor Calame, but had done so by applying the principles of plein-air-painting to an alpine landscape. The ‘photographic’ view point, the structure of the rock formations and the handling of light and colour make this picture the earliest modern landscape in Swiss art history.

As the painting did not go down well with the critics, Menn turned to more modest landscapes that he painted outdoors, and with which he introduced the principles of the modern French paysage-intime into Switzerland. ‘In a bush I see everything’,[7] Menn used to say, capturing in his self-contained landscapes atmospheric changes of evening and morning hours, quiet harmonies of an unspoilt riverbank, a swampy plain or of an orchard in midday, casting them in sensitive tonal values and poetic tenderness. His approach derived entirely from contemporary French landscape painting, in particular from his friend Corot whom Menn called the ‘master of the right values’.[8] It was these new values combined with his quest for natural beauty that Menn would promote as a teacher to generations of Swiss artists.

Barthélemy Menn is buried at the Cimetière des Rois in Geneva.

Notes

  1. ^ Tripier Le Franc, Histoire de la vie et de la mort du Baron Gros, 2 vols., Paris: Jules Martin, 1880, vol. 2, p. 589. Lugardon was not, as has been repeatedly claimed, a pupil of Ingres, but he knew him from his Italian journey where they met in Florence in 1824
  2. ^ ‘Tout le monde, jusqu’aux plus anciens de l'atelier, tremble devant M. Ingres. On le craint beaucoup, en sorte que ses corrections font beaucoup effet. Il est d'une sensibilité extrème.’ From a letter to Jules Hébert of 2 December 1833, quoted in: Jura Brüschweiler, Barthélemy Menn 1815–1893. Etude critique et biographique, Zurich: Swiss Institute for Art Research, 1960, p. 17.
  3. ^ ‘Les élèves partageront leur temps entre l'étude de la nature et celle des maîres, s’attachant spécialement à Phidias, aux bas-reliefs du Parthénon, à la sculpture antique en générale.’ Quoted in Théophile Silvestre, Histoire des artistes vivants- Etudes d'après nature – Ingres, Paris: E. Blanchard 1855, p. 16.
  4. ^ Marc Fehlmann, ‘Casts & Connoisseurs. The early Reception of the Elgin Marbles’, in: Apollo, Vol. 165, No. 554, June 2007, pp. 44–51.
  5. ^ On Menn's copies see Marc Fehlmann and Marie Therese Bätschmann, ‘Menn copiste’, in Genava, No. LVI, 2008, pp. 49–81.
  6. ^ ‘C’est à lui que je vaut tous’, quoted in Jura Brüschweiler, Barthélemy Menn 1815–1893: Étude critique et biographique, Zurich: Swiss Institute for Art Research, 1960, p. 57.
  7. ^ "Dans un buisson, je vois tous", quoted in Jura Brüschweiler, Barthélemy Menn 1815–1893. Etude critique et biographique, Zurich: Swiss Institute for Art Research, 1960, p. 39.
  8. ^ "le maître des valeurs justes", quoted in Jura Brüschweiler, Barthélemy Menn 1815–1893. Etude critique et biographique, Zurich: Swiss Institute for Art Research, 1960, p. 30. On Menns friendship with Corot see Marc Fehlmann, 'Menn Copiste II. Barthélemy Menn et ses contemporains', in: Genava. Revue d'histoire de l'art et d'archéologie, Vol. 57, 2009, pp. 61–91, esp. pp. 83–87.

References

  • Guinand, Léon, Notice abrégée des principes de Barthélemy Menn sur l'art et l'enseignement humaniste. Genf: Jarrys, 1893;
  • Daniel Baud-Bovy, Notice sur Barthélemy Menn. Peintre et éducateur, Geneva: La Montagne, 1898.
  • Anna Lanicca, Barthélemy Menn. Eine Studie, Strassburg: J. H. Ed. Heitz, 1911
  • Daniel Baud-Bovy, ‘Lettres de Rome de Barthélemy Menn à Jules Hébert’, in: Jahrbuch für Kunst Kunstpflege in der Schweiz 1921–1924, Vol. III, Basel: Birkhäuser, 1925, pp. 326 –359.
  • Daniel Baud-Bovy, ‘Lettres de Rome de Barthélemy Menn à Jules Hébert’, in: Jahrbuch für Kunst Kunstpflege in der Schweiz 1925–1927, Vol. IV, Basel: Birkhäuser, 1927, pp. 201 –225.
  • Daniel Baud-Bovy, Barthélemy Menn. Dessinateur, Geneva: Les Éditions du Rhône, 1943.
  • Jura Brüschweiler, Barthélemy Menn 1815–1893: Étude critique et biographique, Zurich: Fretz & Wasmuth, 1960
  • Georges Vigne, Les élèves d'Ingres, Ausstellungskatalog Montauban, Besançon 2000, Montauban, Musée Ingres 2000, pp. 20–21.
  • Marc Fehlmann, 'Menn Copiste I. Barthélemy Menn et l'Antiquité', in: Genava. Revue d'histoire de l'art et d'archéologie, Vol. 56, 2008, pp. 25–41.
  • Marc Fehlmann, 'Menn Copiste II. Barthélemy Menn et ses contemporains', in: Genava. Revue d'histoire de l'art et d'archéologie, Vol. 57, 2009, pp. 61–91.
  • Matthias Fischer, Der junge Hodler. Eine Künstlerkarriere 1872–1897, Wädenswil: Nimbus, 2009. ISBN 978-3-907142-30-1

Read other articles:

Questa voce o sezione sull'argomento centri abitati della Virginia non cita le fonti necessarie o quelle presenti sono insufficienti. Puoi migliorare questa voce aggiungendo citazioni da fonti attendibili secondo le linee guida sull'uso delle fonti. Segui i suggerimenti del progetto di riferimento. Langleyarea non incorporataLangley – VedutaIngresso principale della Langley High School. Sulla sinistra è visibile il monumento dedicato alle famiglie colpite dall'attacco dell'11 settemb...

 

Artikel ini sebatang kara, artinya tidak ada artikel lain yang memiliki pranala balik ke halaman ini.Bantulah menambah pranala ke artikel ini dari artikel yang berhubungan atau coba peralatan pencari pranala.Tag ini diberikan pada Maret 2016. SDN Pondok Kelapa 10InformasiJenisSekolah Dasar NegeriJumlah kelasKelas I sampai kelas VIJumlah siswa408 orang[1]AlamatLokasiJl. Jaya Gas Pondok Kelapa, Kelurahan Pondok Kelapa, Kecamatan Duren Sawit, Jakarta Timur, Jakarta, IndonesiaMo...

 

Untuk kegunaan lain, lihat Baby Blues (disambiguasi). Baby BluesPoster rilis teatrikalSutradaraAndibachtiar YusufProduserRaam PunjabiSkenarioImam DartoCeritaBalraj SinghPemeran Vino G. Bastian Aurélie Moeremans Penata musikStevesmith Music ProductionSinematograferAsep KalilaPenyuntingTeguh RaharjoPerusahaanproduksi Maxstream Original MVP Pictures DistributorMaxstreamTanggal rilis 24 Maret 2022 (2022-03-24) Durasi100 menitNegaraIndonesiaBahasaBahasa Indonesia Baby Blues adalah film...

Artikel ini tidak memiliki referensi atau sumber tepercaya sehingga isinya tidak bisa dipastikan. Tolong bantu perbaiki artikel ini dengan menambahkan referensi yang layak. Tulisan tanpa sumber dapat dipertanyakan dan dihapus sewaktu-waktu.Cari sumber: Astana Gunung Sembung – berita · surat kabar · buku · cendekiawan · JSTOR Gapura Astana Gunung Sembung Astana Gunung Sembung adalah kompleks pemakaman untuk penguasa Kesultanan Cirebon dan keluarganya ya...

 

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.Find sources: 1998 Coupe de la Ligue final – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Football match1998 Coupe de la Ligue finalEvent1997–98 Coupe de la Ligue Paris Saint-Germain Bordeaux Division 1 D...

 

† Человек прямоходящий Научная классификация Домен:ЭукариотыЦарство:ЖивотныеПодцарство:ЭуметазоиБез ранга:Двусторонне-симметричныеБез ранга:ВторичноротыеТип:ХордовыеПодтип:ПозвоночныеИнфратип:ЧелюстноротыеНадкласс:ЧетвероногиеКлада:АмниотыКлада:Синапсиды�...

English filmmaker This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (June 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) Jennings in 2008 Garth Jennings is an English director, screenwriter and actor. Films he has directed include The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Son of Rambow, Sing, and Sing 2....

 

Overview of Chinese provinces This article is about provinces in the People's Republic of China. For all province-level divisions of China, see Province-level divisions of China. For the Republic of China, see Administrative divisions of Taiwan. Provinces省ShěngCategoryUnitary stateLocation People's Republic of ChinaNumber22 (1 claimed)GovernmentUnitary one-party socialist republicSubdivisionsSub-provincial city, Prefecture-level divisions ProvincesChinese nameSimplified Chinese省Trad...

 

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.Find sources: Rack billiards – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message) Billiard balls in a rack A rack (sometimes called a triangle) is a piece of equipment that is used to place billiard balls in their star...

Artikel ini sebatang kara, artinya tidak ada artikel lain yang memiliki pranala balik ke halaman ini.Bantulah menambah pranala ke artikel ini dari artikel yang berhubungan atau coba peralatan pencari pranala.Tag ini diberikan pada Mei 2016. The Deadly DiscipleSutradaraS. MohanPemeranVishal KotianChristina HohSanjay SinghJessie LimJacinta LeeDistributorDynacoral ProductionTanggal rilis 1 November 2001Durasi90 menitNegaraMalaysiaBahasaInggrisAnggaranRM1.2 juta The Deadly Disciple adalah film la...

 

1979 novel by Stephen King Not to be confused with The Rock and Roll Dead Zone. The Dead Zone First edition coverAuthorStephen KingCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishGenreScience fiction, ThrillerPublisherViking PressPublication dateAugust 16, 1979Media typePrint (Hardcover and Paperback)Pages428ISBN978-0-670-26077-5 The Dead Zone is a science fiction thriller novel by Stephen King published in 1979. The story follows Johnny Smith, who awakens from a coma of nearly five years and, appare...

 

نادي التهامي السعودي الاسم الكامل نادي التهامي الرياضي السعودي اللقب عميد الجنوب المؤسس محمد سالم باعشن[1] تأسس عام 1948 م - 1368 هـ الملعب ملعب مدينة الملك فيصل الرياضيةجيزان  السعودية(السعة: 10,000) البلد السعودية  الدوري دوري الدرجة الرابعة السعودي 2021 - 2022 2021 - 2022 الإدا�...

King of Ayutthaya MahinthrathiratมหินทราธิราชKing of AyutthayaKing of SiamReign15 April 1569 – 2 August 1569PredecessorMaha ChakkraphatSuccessorMaha Thammaracha (as vassal king)Vassal King of SiamReign18 February 1564 – before 12 May 1568PredecessorMaha ChakkraphatSuccessorMaha Chakkraphat (as sovereign king)EmperorBayinnaungBorn1539Diedc. late 1569NamesMahinthrathiratHouseSuphannaphum dynastyFatherMaha ChakkrapatMotherSri Suriyothai Mahinthrathirat (Thai: มห�...

 

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for stand-alone lists. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be shown, the article is likel...

 

TR-606PembuatRoland CorporationTanggal perilisan1981–1984SpesifikasiMemori penyimpanan32 pola, 8 laguInput/outputRoland TR-606 Drumatix adalah mesin drum sintesis analog yang dapat diprogram buatan Roland Corporation dari tahun 1981 hingga 1984. Awalnya 606 dirancang untuk digunakan bersama Roland TB-303 (penyintesis bass analog monofonik) untuk memberikan iringan drum dan bass yang sederhana untuk gitaris tanpa pemain drum/bass. TR-606 umumnya digunakan pada genre musik elektronik, seperti...

For other uses, see Infamy (disambiguation). This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article may be confusing or unclear to readers. Please help clarify the article. There might be a discussion about this on the talk page. (October 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by ad...

 

2003 UK local government election Map of the results of the 2003 Southampton council election. Liberal Democrats in yellow, Conservatives in blue and Labour in red. The 2003 Southampton Council election took place on 1 May 2003 to elect members of Southampton Unitary Council in Hampshire, England. One third of the council was up for election and the council stayed under no overall control.[1] After the election, the composition of the council was: Liberal Democrat 18 Labour 16 Conserv...

 

1931 film For the Mexican band, see Grupo Límite. LimiteDirected byMário PeixotoWritten byMário PeixotoProduced byMário PeixotoStarringOlga BrenoTatiana ReyRaul SchnoorCinematographyEdgar BrasilEdited byMario PeixotoRelease dates 17 May 1931 (1931-05-17) (Brazilian premiere,Capitol Theatre,Rio de Janeiro) Running time120 minutesCountryBrazilLanguagePortuguese Limite (Brazilian Portuguese: [lĩˈmitʃi], Portuguese for Limit, Border or Edge) is a Brazilian silent...

Pour les autres articles nationaux ou selon les autres juridictions, voir Cour de sûreté de l'État. Cour de sûreté de l'ÉtatHistoireFondation 1963Dissolution 1981CadreType Juridiction d'exceptionDomaine d'activité Infraction politique en FrancePays  Francemodifier - modifier le code - modifier Wikidata La Cour de sûreté de l'État est, dans l'organisation juridictionnelle en France, une ancienne juridiction d'exception qui avait pour but de juger les personnes accusées de port...

 

أشلي غرين كنيسة أشلي غرين الإحداثيات 51°44′N 0°35′W / 51.73°N 0.59°W / 51.73; -0.59   [1] تقسيم إداري  البلد المملكة المتحدة[2]  التقسيم الأعلى باكينغهامشير  [لغات أخرى]‏  عدد السكان  عدد السكان 989 (2021)[3]  معلومات أخرى HP5  رمز الهاتف 01442  رمز ...