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GUERIN, PIERRE NARCISSE, BARON (1774-...

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 671 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GUERIN, See also:PIERRE NARCISSE, See also:BARON (1774-1833) , See also:French painter, was See also:born at See also:Paris on the 13th of May 1774. Becoming a See also:pupil of See also:jean See also:Baptiste See also:Regnault, he carried off one of the three " grands prix " offered in 1796, in consequence of the competition not having taken See also:place since 1793. The See also:pension was not indeed re-established, but Guerin fulfilled at Paris the conditions imposed upon a pensiennaire, and produced various See also:works, one of which brought him prominently before the public. This See also:work, "See also:Marcus Sextus " (Louvre), exhibited at the See also:Salon of 1799, excited See also:wild See also:enthusiasm, partly due to the subject,—a victim of See also:Sulla's proscription returning to See also:Rome to find his wife dead and his See also:house in See also:mourning—in which an allusion was found to the actual poet or painter has rendered so well the feeling for nature—the feeling not so much for details as for the ensemble and the divine universality, the feeling for the origin of things and the See also:sovereign principle of See also:life." The name of See also:EUGENIE DE GUERIN (1805-1848), the See also:sister of See also:Maurice, cannot be omitted from any See also:notice of him. Her See also:Journals (1861, Eng. trans., 1865) and her Lettres (1864, Eng. trans., 1865) indicated the See also:possession of gifts of as rare an See also:order as those of her See also:brother, though of a somewhat different See also:kind. In her See also:case See also:mysticism assumed a See also:form more strictly religious, and she continued to mourn her brother's loss of his See also:early See also:Catholic faith. Five years older than he, she cherished a love for him which was blended with a somewhat motherly anxiety. After his See also:death she began the collection and publication of the scattered fragments of his writings. She died, however, on the 31st of May 1848, before her task was completed. situation of the emigres. Guerin on this occasion was publicly crowned by the See also:president of the See also:Institute, and before his departure for Rome (on the re-See also:establishment of the Ecole under Suvee) a banquet was given to him by the most distinguished artists of Paris. In 1800, unable to remain in Rome on See also:account of his See also:health, he went to See also:Naples, where he painted the " See also:Grave of Amyntas." In 1802 Guerin produced "See also:Phaedra and See also:Hippolytus" (Louvre); in 181o, after his return to Paris, he again achieved a See also:great success with " See also:Andromache and See also:Pyrrhus " (Louvre); and in the same See also:year also exhibited " Cephalus and See also:Aurora" (Collection Sommariva) and"See also:Bonaparte and the Rebels of See also:Cairo" (See also:Versailles).

The Restoration brought to Guerin fresh honours; he had received from the first See also:

consul in 1803 the See also:cross of the See also:Legion of See also:Honour, and in 1815 See also:Louis XVIII. named him Academician. The success of Guerin's " Hippolytus " of " Andromache," of " Phaedra " and of " Clytaemnestra" (Louvre) had been ensured by the skilful selection of highly melodramatic situations, treated with the strained and pompous dignity proper to the See also:art of the first See also:empire; in " See also:Aeneas See also:relating to See also:Dido the disasters of See also:Troy" (Louvre), which appeared See also:side by side with " Clytaemnestra " at the Salon of 1817, the See also:influence of the Restoration is plainly to be traced. In this work Guerin sought to captivate the public by an See also:appeal to those sensuous charms which he had previously rejected, and by the introduction of picturesque elements of See also:interest. But with this work Guerin's public successes came to a See also:close. He was, indeed, commissioned to paint for the Madeleine a See also:scene from the See also:history of St Louis, but his health prevented him from accomplishing what he had begun, and in 1822 he accepted the See also:post of director of the Ecole de Rome, which in 1816 he had refused. On returning to Paris in 1828, Guerin, who had previously been made See also:chevalier of the order of St See also:Michel, was ennobled. He now attempted to See also:complete " Pyrrhus and See also:Priam," a work which he had begun at Rome, but in vain; his health had finally broken down, and in the See also:hope of improvement he returned to See also:Italy with See also:Horace See also:Vernet. Shortly after his arrival at Rome Baron Guerin died, on the 6th of See also:July 1833, and was buried In the See also:church of La Trinita de' Monti by the side of See also:Claude See also:Lorraine. A careful See also:analysis and See also:criticism of his See also:principal works will be found in See also:Meyer's Geschichte der franzosischen Malerei.

End of Article: GUERIN, PIERRE NARCISSE, BARON (1774-1833)

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