Gros, a life's work becomes a legend
Although he was a former pupil of David (he joined the master's studio at the age of fifteen), the future Baron Gros, together with Gérard, Girodet and Guérin, was one of the major pioneers of the romantic movement so much admired by Géricault and Delacroix. Having become Napoleon's protégé through the influence of Joséphine de Beauharnais of whom he painted a handsome portrait (Louvre), he is the official painter of the imperial epic. When the empire fell and David was exiled to Brussels, Gros took over his master's studio where he attempted to perpetuate his teachings. Thus started a difficult period for Gros. His art waned as contemporary history no longer gave him the inspiration necessary for his grand compositions. David's influence is mostly perceptible in his portraits such as the one of his wife Augustine Dufresne (1822). Hercules and Diomedes exhibited in the Salon rouge at the Augustins museum seems to be an ultimate and vain attempt at reviving the neo-classical age.
While he attained fame during his lifetime, Gros achieved mythical status after his death. His suicide in Meudon in 1835 caused a great surge of sympathy and many artists rendered him homage. Thus Bordier du Bignon (Gros hurling himself into eternity) represents the fateful moment charged with emotion when the painter threw himself into the Seine, echoing the suicide of Sapho painted by Gros and today kept in the museum of Bayeux. Louise Sarazin de Belmont painted a series of four pictures in his memory, the most touching of which must surely be Paris, seen from the heights of Père-Lachaise, where the tomb of his much missed friend stands in the foreground.
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