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Laurens' link with the state was largely through commissions and patronage. However, this link was also a result of ideological affinities. His paintings represent, more or less explicitly, the nation, power and national pride, thus forging the emblems and images that contribute to shaping the foundations of a society. The period marking the beginnings of the Third Republic is accompanied by the development of this genre, which served to illustrate the new regime, thus fulfilling a social role and leaving behind the old aristocratic elite of the Ancien Regime.
Officially recognised as a major artist, Jean-Paul Laurens, a convinced republican, obtained several large-scale commissions for monument decoration. His first work of this kind was for the municipality of Paris. His painting entitled Saint Bruno refusing the offerings of Roger, Count of Calabre (1874), was intended for the Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs church. He painted his first mural in 1874-1876 for the Légion d'honneur Palace. It represented Bonaparte laying the first foundations of the palace. Laurens was then commissioned by the Fine Arts administration to participate in a project to decorate the Panthéon. It was here in the apse of the Panthéon that Laurens painted his famous series of the death and funeral of Saint Genevieve (1882), while Puvis de Chavannes painted the rest of the cycle in the nave. The quality of the composition and his skill in mastering the constraints imposed by a mural, gained for Laurens his long-lasting reputation as a painter of this genre. Thereafter, Laurens worked on numerous successive commissions. In Paris, he painted the ceiling of the dome in the Odéon theatre (1887-1888) and took part in a decoration project at the city hall during which he completed five panels in the Lobau hall (1889-1903) representing memorable episodes in the history of the capital. In Toulouse, he was responsible for a large part of the decoration work located in the city hall or Capitole (1892-1902). Here we can still see his work in the "salle des Illustres" including three tempera side decorations, one of which is La Muraille. Laurens also painted the ceiling and the Great staircase decoration (1900-1915). Also worthy of mention is a triptych on the life of Joan of Arc painted for the town hall in Tours (1899-1903), two mural panels for the pééfecture of the Loire (1901-1904) and the ceiling of the municipal theatre in Castres (1902-1908). Laurens left vast quantities of his work to France's national heritage. His works can still be admired in these public buildings. But as the new century was dawning Laurens shifted out of the limelight and he received no further important state commissions. His prestige remained untainted, but the metamorphosis which was taking place in tastes and artistic fashions meant that he was already being abandoned to the past.
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