A Mannerist or Pioneer
of French Classicism?
The still lifes, executed before his Roman journey and remaining atypical, are striking in their asceticism and the austere richness of their composition, as well as the metaphysical implications that people have enjoyed reading into them. The concept of Baugin as a "master of reality" is not really a feature in the classification of his other works, which should be considered rather in terms of their relationship to Mannerism and Classicism: Mannerism because the painter retained the lessons of composition and formal characteristics (colouring, canon of figures) of the decorations at Fontainebleau and of certain 16th Century Italian artists; Classicism because, having been inspired by Raphael, he was a pioneer of French Classicism, creating calm, ascetic compositions from which all emotion seems excluded.
There is no doubt that the Christ au tombeau from Orléans best symbolises these works: "After so many dramatic descents from the cross ... the solitude of the corpse. A vague, grey background where you can just distinguish the implacable diagonal of the half-open tomb. Only two cherubs, immobile in their grief and contemplating the great body, completely nude and half-stretched out inside. This corpse is so very beautiful: no mark of torture, no trace of blood. ... There is possibly no-one who has ever depicted the essentials better than Baugin, with such simplicity and such gentleness" (Jacques Thuillier).
|
