Travels in Italy and Spain
So between 1862 and 1866, Carolus-Duran was a resident at the Villa Medici, in Rome. He travelled a great deal during these four years. And as before, he often studied in museums but now also took advantage of the chance to roam the Italian countryside, a source of inspiration that resulted in several landscape studies. The painter devoted his final year in Rome to a picture to be sent to the Salon on his return to France, in accordance with the rules of the Wicar Foundation. He therefore produced an ambitious work, The Murdered Man (L'Assassiné), which was exhibited at the Salon of 1866 and awarded a medal. Never a prolific drawer, Carolus-Duran nevertheless made many preparatory studies for this painting, of which ten drawings are in the Louvre and two sketches in the museum in Lille.
The painter shared a fascination for Spain with a number of his contemporaries, particularly Zacharie Astruc and Manet. It had its roots way back in the history of 19th Century painting, when Louis-Philippe created the Spanish Gallery in the Louvre. During his stay in Rome, Carolus-Duran copied Velasquez's Portrait of Innocent X, admiring its blend of naturalism and reality and producing a personal interpretation enlivened by the beauty of an expressive art form. His admiration for the painter was a determining factor in his journey to Spain. He left for Toledo in 1866 and settled there in 1867, not without visiting Madrid, Saragossa and Barcelona. The Portrait of the Spanish painter Moreno, directly inspired by Velasquez's work, the Young Spaniard and the beautiful Self Portrait in the Uffizi gallery, illustrate the enduring influence of the Spanish painter on the work of Carolus-Duran, particularly his portraits. The latter work is clearly evocative of the temperament of this artist of whom the critic Véron wrote in 1876: "A bizarre caprice caused the birth in the North of one who seems to have the waters of the Garonne flowing through his veins".
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