Guillaume-Joseph Roques, Toulouse artist
His pupil Ingres said that he was "the creator of that which others merely strove for". Guillaume-Joseph Roques was one of the most prolific Toulouse artists of the Empire and the Restoration period. His work, marked by an eclectic array of sources (Poussin, Greuze, Doyen and David) tends towards romanticism. In his capacity as a decorator, his most accomplished work adorns the choir in the Notre-Dame de la Daurade church in Toulouse: it is the cycle dedicated to The Life of the Virgin executed between 1810-1820.
It marks the revival of the religious spirit at the beginning of the 19th century (Chateaubriand, The spirit of Christianity) and illustrates the return to Italian sources and the influence of Ingres to which he remained faithful to the last. His Selfportrait in the effigy of Louis XVIII (between 1815 and 1817) and his Shepherds from the valley of Campan (1835) also indicate the artistic ascendant of his brilliant pupil while affirming his own taste for introspection and an interest in regionalism.
| Guillaume-Joseph Roques, Toulouse artist |
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